In His Image
by Eternal-Night-Ride
Summary: From the outside, looking in.
1. Denial

The Elohim were very rare in the world that they heralded in. Nestled in the outskirts of the Andromeda galaxy, lay a very bright world with a sun so large that it should have by all accounts consumed the surrounding planets with its pull. Like a miracle, it survived on just enough distance and just enough revolutions around its star to maintain itself while also fostering enough habitability to contain life. The sentient beings were nomadic and had no interest to stay in their own world, believing that the answers to their questions of life and existence was far beyond their immediate reach. So they travelled all over and returned only to divulge knowledge to the young so they may eventually go forth and seek. They had no need to propagate in large numbers with their long lifespan and were generally quite isolated in nature. Each of their communities were small and tended to themselves with their own focuses and ways of lives. Certain races stayed within their own communities, occasionally becoming parts of others but then excluding themselves to those new communities then. They were civil with each other, but coldly, distantly so. The Seraphim focused on music and culture, the Thrones with their desire to build travelling machines and continue gaining more technological advancements to further this, the Angelos with their belief in security and using fighting techniques as a means to reach a higher state of being, and many other subspecies.

The one that had strayed over to the Milky Way galaxy was from the Cherubim. It was purely by chance that this one had stumbled into a noted hero, known all over the universe for his exploits, for this one did not tend towards violence. There were fighters borne of this one's world, but it was not in the Cherub community to foster in those ideals, so very rare were those who looked to fight especially for violence's sake.

This one was – well – scanned by some device. There were some information regarding it that was known, with its great capacity to contain many other creatures with which its wielder could then use. The Cherub had flown off, uncertain and mildly anxious of the event. There were principles in the communities of Elohim to avoid being captured in any device for it took a part of the _nefesh_. Such devices that communicated their image in a permanent form were ominous. The cameras of the human world, these photographs and televisions, were foreboding. Perhaps there were others who had had their images captured and had passed down their knowledge to others after their travels. It was an old story, it had been centuries since this one had returned to the homeworld. Perhaps it was time again to do so. The Source should hopefully bless this one with better luck and be able to continue travelling without due punishment for being lax regarding the image catching device.

Ben had no idea what that alien was, but he did note that it was a powerful one. The Omnitrix hadn't recognised what it was so it spent most of the fight in scan mode, much to his chagrin. The alien had been quiet and weird, and had responded skittishly in his and Rook's presence. It was a cause of much suspicion and he'd tried to gather more information since there were illegal activities down in the alien marketplace for a while, only to be met with a very cold shoulder. Well, actually having his face nearly burnt off after he'd gotten too close to it. He'd only responded in turn since it was getting violent at him and evasive, which increased the suspicion.

For the most part it was Rook who had been holding it off from truly damaging him while he did evasive tactics, accidentally toppling carts and shop tables along the way.

When it had run off, he growled in frustration since their investigation trail had gone cold again.

"Perhaps this person was only a visitor, he had not seemed interested in fighting you," Rook suggested mildly, placing the gun back on top of his shoulder.

"It fried off my eyebrow!" he retorted, pointing at the offending blank space over his one twitching green eye.

"Well, you were not exactly very polite while you questioned him," his partner added, raising his finger as if to remind him.

There was a sigh, and the hero shook his head at his partner's rather naïve comment. "It's interrogation, we don't do small talk with bad guys."

The taller plumber considered this for a moment before stating, "We do not entirely have confirmation that he is a bad guy. Perhaps his presence in the scene is incidental."

Flat impatient expression in place, the savior of the universe sharply pointed at his missing eyebrow as if it was all they needed. "Besides even if it isn't the main baddie, it could've seen something. Like, you know, the people who were doing all the illegal dealings. We might have found the underground fight ring."

"Perhaps," his partner had to concede with this particular argument.

"The only good thing I got there was its alien form," the Tennyson hero said neutrally, shrugging as if to say he believed that it was enough of a counterpoint for why they should be there. Fiddling with the dial, he eventually stumbled into the actual form and slammed his hand on the choice. After a blazing transformation, he exclaimed, "Angelfire!"

Then he swiftly started to nudge his elbow at his partner, who now appeared at least a head shorter than his current form due to its size, taking care not to directly shove the flames right on the other man's clothes. "Eh? Eh?"

The Revonnahgander stared at his arm movements as if he was seeing Ben trying to lick his elbow again like that one time, blinked several times and smiled uncertainly as if to simply be polite because he assumed that it was supposed to be a joke. That he didn't understand.

The hero of heroes of sighed to himself, drooped his shoulders defeatedly and said, "I need to introduce you to the internet."

* * *

It wasn't long before the alien form disappeared mysteriously from his playlist, which he had reacted to with much panic since he had only managed to use it a few times. It wasn't like his socks or anything like that he could easily have just dropped in the messy pile that was his bedroom floor, it was an alien form in the Omnitrix.

This baffled him that he had wanted to bug Azmuth regarding the event, but the Galvan had been busy on some project to watch him flail cluelessly about just another thing regarding the Omnitrix he didn't know about. So he was pushed to Blukic and Driba, who only used him as a test subject for stupid things that had gotten him nowhere to finding out the answer to his missing alien form problem.

In the meantime, a slight young man crawled out from underneath a tree shade in a Bellwood park then staggered through the town in mild confusion for the better part of the day. He walked around the town, passing by Mr. Smoothie, going to the local public school, stumbling on a certain suburban area and managed to find himself in front of the Tennyson household.

His hand had been reaching out to the front door but had immediately stopped upon hearing the sounds of activity inside the house. It was the voices of Carl and Sandra discussing what they planned to do for a holiday and asking their son whether he wanted to go or stay in Bellwood during the time. The young man stopped dead in his tracks as he heard the mildly disinterested response of the one called Ben, and scrunched his eyebrows.

For a time he had no idea what to do, sincerely baffled by what was happening. The rain had fallen all over the town before he slowly started to back away from the front door, only stopping yet again upon seeing something strange in the reflection from a puddle that had formed on the pavement. Squinting hard and falling to his knees, he stared at much brighter green eyes than he had expected, softer shaped and surrounded by long eyelashes. Eyelashes too pale for what he had expected. In fact, his hair was unusual, not just because it was matted to his face from the droplets of rain. Even in the darkened, drenched color, it was still too pale. His face was not angled enough. His shoulders too broad. The figure, even crouched like this, was too tall. He had wondered if this was the reason for the poor sense of balance. But then-

Who was the person he stared at in the puddle? That couldn't be him. In a voice that he thought was too deep and too throaty sounding, he stated into the rainwater, "This is weird. Even for me."

Finally seeing the mouth in the image move, following all of the words that he had iterated, made him jump up to his feet in response. Then he ran. He ran away from the street where the Tennysons lived, ran away as far back until he was too drenched in rain and too tired to keep going.

The revelation was easy enough to accept after he had woken up from his exhaustion induced sleep inside an abandoned warehouse when he quickly transformed into another being. _Angelfire_. Why that name popped in his head was something he did not dwell on for too long. He simply tried to transform back and put out the fire on the wooden beam with his shirt. There was a lot of sheepishness that rolled into his chest when he saw the blackened part of the wooden beam, regardless of whether the place was already abandoned. He was happy that he didn't turn the whole street into a flaming ball after his incredibly emotional response.

Trying to fill in the silence, he remarked, "Wow, being me must be a total insurance nightmare." He laughed to himself, but the echoes in the empty building coaxed it to slowly die down.

Scrunching his eyebrows to wonder about himself and what was going on, a name simply formed in his mind. "Evan Sullivan," he mumbled, rolling the words in his tongue. "I guess that's me then." He paused. "I think." Then his stomach started to rumble loudly enough for the building to also cause to echo, much to his embarrassment. "I guess thinking on an empty stomach's not on the list of things I do very well."

Fumbling around in his pockets, he searched every single corner of whichever hole the clothes actually offered for any money or anything like a candy bar to at least satisfy his current predicament. But he turned out with nothing. Looking increasingly worried, he groaned, "You're kidding." His mind wasn't helping him with any sense of where he was supposed to live or what he was supposed to do next.

Since there was nothing else he could do for the moment that would be an assured source of continued nourishment, he had decided to walk around the streets of Bellwood. It was a bright sunny morning, with plenty of people who were off to go to work and school. Everyone seemed to have an aim of where to go. He wondered if perhaps he was supposed to go to the city, sit down the side walks and beg for food, at least for the meantime. Stomach doing flips at the sheer misery of the idea, he considered that it was much better for him to look out for the fact that he was going hungry. There was nowhere to go.

Thinking back to the time he stumbled into a house the previous day, he shut his mind out of thinking much further. It wasn't time to start feeling sorry for himself when he should be more active in tending to his immediate need. Eventually getting coaxed by the increasingly strong clawing in his gut, he had gone to Bellwood city and sat down to beg. Fries in Burger Shack were currently a deal because of some promotion for a show that the food was attached to. He just needed maybe three dollars for something to eat. A few more dollars and he could beeline for Mr. Smoothie as well.

Maybe.

The entire day was harsh for him. He had not anticipated how hard it actually was to wrangle up those few dollars. It was only around the end of school time for everybody when he managed to collect everything. A young woman with long dark hair and a pink sweater handed him five dollars. There were others with a few coins over the course of the day, but most just ignored him. Perhaps he didn't look pathetic enough for them to take pity. But he had been close to passing out due to the hunger near the end of the day.

When he looked up to take it, his hands actually shaking from the low blood sugar, he was met with a kind sympathetic smile.

"Are you okay?" the young woman asked.

"Hungry, but still alive and kicking," he responded amicably, incredibly grateful. He could feel his spirits raising upon the realization he could actually eat now. "Mostly just alive. Kicking's probably not recommended right now." When he moved up to get off the pavement, he nearly fell down again. His blood pressure was probably low too, because his eyes could see black dots that darkened his vision for a few seconds. Heart racing, he tried to right himself quickly. That was when he realized the young woman was holding on to his arm to make sure he didn't smack back down to the pavement and injure himself.

"I guess you're not doing too well," she responded with come concern.

"I guess," he admitted shyly, scrunching up the note in his hand. Then shoving one of his hands in his pockets where the rest of the coins were. "Thank you. This is just enough for me to go and eat."

"Why don't I go with you until you get there? Can't have you passing out on the middle of the street now, can we?" she recommended, giving him another kind smile.

"I don't wanna bother you," he said hurriedly, waving his hands in embarrassment over troubling her.

"I haven't got tennis practice or anything I need to go to," she responded, shrugging her shoulders as if to say it's no problem. "And don't worry about getting mugged or anything by me-"

"I've got nothing to mug anyway," he snorted out in self-depreciation.

Then with a very optimistic, happy, gentle smile, she asked, "So, what do you say?"

"I say: what's your name?" he asked in a light tone, finding it easy to get on good terms with someone who seemed so friendly.

"Julie Yamamoto," she answered confidently, yet in a voice that was so pleasant and sweet sounding instead of how he'd expected the voice to be like. "Nice to meet you."

_"Ben Tennyson. Hi."_

"Julie. I know who you are."

Shaking his head for a minute, he tried to wrestle his mind back to the real world and stop being weird. He was just so hungry that he was zoning out so much. What was he even thinking?

"Evan Sullivan," he introduced himself, stretching out a friendly hand which she took to shake. "I'm, uh, new around here. And very hungry."

"You can tell me all about it after you've eaten," she giggled lightly, making sure to hold his arm to support him as he wobbled off to a stand again.

After they talked in Burger Shack, he'd found out about her career in tennis, the college that she was about to apply for, her life in Bellwood, and was introduced to her galvanic mechamorph pet named Ship who was her bag at the time. He'd told her about the fact that he was not from around here and she'd managed to deduce easily that he was an alien, which he had promptly admitted. She also now knew of his lack of a home, his complete confusion as he appeared in Bellwood. But he hadn't told her of other things inside his head that he himself didn't particularly like thinking about. He didn't think they were important. Evidently he was an Angelfire thing and was lost, probably watched a silly television news of a hero and clueslessly latched on to the information while he was confused. However, the more he searched himself the less true it felt that he was any kind of hero. He was just some guy. A very hungry, homeless, lonely guy. Who also happened to be an alien.

It probably made sense that she wanted to help him along. After all, he looked like a lost little puppy. Due to how close she was with the whole alien situation, it was much easier for her to feel sympathetic for aliens in dire straits. She's seen a lot of them, almost as much as seeing aliens who wanted to steal her dog or attack her planet.

At the end of their dinner, she had asked him if there was anywhere that he was going to stay for the night. It made him perk up in surprise. He hadn't expected to be receiving this much charity.

"Thanks again," he said for the umpteenth time.

"And you're still very welcome," she giggled, leading him over to a small shop over to the corner of Bellwood city, just near the entrance to the suburban areas. When they finally entered the quaint establishment, she called out, "Mr. Chan!"

A short, balding old man appeared out a door from behind the cashier, crabbily responding, "Store's closing! Please come back tomorrow! We had the sign up on the door." There was mumbling that sounded like he was grumpily getting annoyed over being old and forgetting to lock up.

"Mr. Chan, do you still have that lodging open for your place?" the young woman beside him asked, unperturbed and still smiling.

On the other hand, he was standing there looking even more agitated and wanting to run off. He didn't want to impose on the increasingly annoyed old man. He sidled closer to her to whisper nervously, "You know what, Julie? It's okay. I still have that abandoned warehouse at Industry Boulevard. I think I can deal." There was a bead of sweat forming on the side of his temple.

"Don't be silly," she whispered back. "I'm sure Mr. Chan can take you in. He has space."

"It looks like it's not available," he whimpered to her, as the old man glowered him up and down. Even with the man's obviously bad back and potentially arthritis ridden joints, the force of his glare could probably melt stone.

The young woman looked at him fondly while he cowered behind her. "He's nice when you get to know him."

"You got the money for rent?" the old man hissed at the teenagers, holding on to the antique Victorian chair and walked past the old wooden clock.

"Not even a little bit, sir," the fair-haired young man answered honestly, trying to slowly walk off back to the door before Julie decided to grab his shirt to pull him back.

"But he's gonna be sleeping alone without any kind of air conditioning or fan in the hot weather tonight and he'll just die of heatstroke in his sleep," she rationalized, pleading as sweetly as she could to the impatient elderly shopkeeper. "There's no one else he could go to and I'd take him back at my place but my dad's not gonna let him stay. Please, Mr. Chan. You're not gonna let a poor kid just be out there on the streets at such late hours, would you? He'll get hurt and what would we do then?"

"I'm okay!" said poor kid interjected, waving his hands around reassuringly. "I'll be fine! It's no problem at all. It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Chan. Great shop you have here."

"Most of them teenagers don't care about my house being safe anyway, why would he be any safer in here than out there?" Mr. Chan stated flatly, staring particularly at Julie instead of the young man who would supposedly sleep in his rented room. The old man crossed his arms as well as his poorly articulated joints could do.

For a moment, Evan watched his new friend's face shift into a sadder expression before reclaiming the smile on her face and responding, "Because he'd be with you, Mr. Chan. Please?"

Sighing in the most defeated and angry fashion, the crabby old man finally accepted with, "Fine." Glaring at the dark haired young girl who seemed especially happy at her success, he added: "You're lucky you're a good kid. And you're dad's a nice man who helped me after that last schtick with that dumb boyfriend of yours."

"He's not my boyfriend anymore, Mr. Chan," she said reassuringly, laughing as if it was so silly that they were still talking about such old news.

"Thank goodness you're a smart girl," the old man added with a tsk, as if feeling sorry for her the entire time that she actually was dating said boyfriend. "Or I wouldn't trust your people you bring in here."

Evan just felt completely out of the loop over the conversation, but he stayed quiet and listened politely.

"What's your name, boy?" the old man finally turned to him, both hands behind his back as if to look imposing and critical. Which would have been particularly hard with the man's deficient height, he was smaller than even the tiny young woman who accosted him here was. Unfortunately he had guessed then – correctly he would later realize – that the old man must have been an officer or part of the military back in the day.

"E-Evan Sullivan, sir," he replied shyly, extending a hand that the old man only stared at for a while before returning his gaze back to the overly nervous teenaged boy. "Nice to meet you."

"Hmph. Well-mannered at least," Mr. Chan grumbled, finally turning around to head over back to his home attached to the back of his store. Which gave Evan the excuse to finally loosen up and express dread and terror over the idea of having to stay with such a critical old man, which he shared with his friend. Julie only seemed to find his quietly complaining facial expression amusing enough to start giggling again. "Close the door behind you, store's shutting up now."

When he said goodbye to her as he closed the door to the store, he smiled as she waved sweetly and headed off. He lingered for far longer than he intended before going up to be introduced to his new home.

* * *

Despite the facade of someone intensely abrasive and easily irritable, Mr Chan was actually a very good shopkeeper and tended to be quite pleasant with his customers. The good sales pitch on the history of the antiques and the sense of being able to trust in the old man's words due to his air of authority made people want to buy what he sold. Although with Evan in particular, he was less personable and would just order him around to do dishes after dinner and sweep up floors. In the end, he hadn't minded since he was actually just living there with no payment for the lodgings and it was the least he could do to help out.

He was slowly getting used to Mr Chan in a way that he had actually been responding to the snide comments in turn too, not overly disrespectfully, but just enough to answer back. It seemed that since he hadn't gotten kicked out that Mr Chan didn't mind his occasional lip either. Some moments he would see the old man smile to himself, but not when he knew that Evan could see, because he actually found the kid's comeback pretty funny. It made Evan feel just that much more accepted and happy where he was.

Occasionally, he still met up and hung out with Julie because he had nothing else to do. After she finished school or tennis practice, he'd mosey around to where he believed she'd be and pretend he'd just been passing by. So they'd catch up over at her mom's garden or play fetch with Ship at the street just outside her house. It was going home on one of those days that he stumbled into an alien attack.

Ben Tennyson and Rook were pursuing Sunder who had taken an artefact that was actually found in the underground alien market – its presence of which was illegal in the first place – through the streets of Bellwood. At first, Evan had simply tried to stay away from the cause of the commotion, but as people were trying to scurry away from the damage of the fights he couldn't bring himself to ignore it. Almost immediately, there was something inside his chest that clenched so hard at the sight of pieces of fence and concrete flying off at people who were just walking to home or somewhere minding their own business. Transforming swiftly into his alien form, he flew as quickly as he could towards a child that a slightly older young girl had accidentally let go off and was about to meet with a wooden beam that had come off of a house after an energy blast from Chromastone accidentally dislodged it to attack Sunder.

Grabbing the young boy who had been too petrified to run out of the way, he immediately handed the child over to the young girl. He'd then found out she was the older sister as she cried and hugged the little boy. Thinking quickly, he'd told them as well as the other civilians in the area to move as far away from the street as possible while he raised a shield of the wind formed from his spinning wings. He wasn't used to the technique, so that when he'd stopped as they were all safely out of the way, he had to force himself to hold in his lunch and stumbled in circles for a while.

As one of the houses in the adjacent street caught fire from the shots of fireballs from Swampfire that were missing Sunder only by inches, Evan himself rushed over to a nearby street water pump in a panic, grabbed the valve and just melted it right off with the fire from his hand to gush water. With his wings, he redirected the water to specifically put out the fires before the rest of the street started burning.

Watching the scene, he realized that the alien tech was now in Ben's hands – or rather, Echo Echo's hands and were being passed around amongst the different clones and at Rook. In the meantime, Sunder swung his axe around and smashed the weapon into light poles, into trees, into the fronts of houses.

All the time, Evan was getting increasingly frustrated. How much more damage was going to occur before they actually decided to leave that area and head over to less compromising places? They finally had the tech, what was the point of staying here in the suburbs? They should already be going so they could lead their enemy into a much easier place to arrest him.

At the transformation of Humongousaur, Ben grabbed the now much smaller form of Sunder and smashed him right into a house.

At this, the Elohim's stomach lurched painfully and he could feel the lips of all of the Cherub heads trembling, his fists shaking and the brightness around his form lessen. In his mind, all Evan could do was pray that nobody was in that house. That nobody else had been hurt. Because he would hate himself if he hadn't been able to save that person. This was wrong. Why was this happening?

As the hero collected his enemy and both he and his partner went off on their way, Evan rushed over to the wrecked house. Traversing over to the hole made in the place, he carefully navigated himself inside. Perhaps he should have transformed back to human so he wouldn't collide with the part of the wall that was still intact as he was much too tall. But he hadn't been thinking that well with the panic settling in his mind far higher than rationality. There was ringing in his ears and gut wrenching fear coiling like snakes in his center. He pleaded for the place to be empty. An unwelcome sight of an elderly lady on the floor clutching at her leg that had a piece of concrete right on top of it greeted him instead. It was far too dark to see when he was still outside that there was someone in there. Only after he went in did he confirm that she was there.

Trying to soothe her as she cried out in fear over him, he told her that he was just here to help her. Gently picking her up in his arms he toned down the fires and brightness in his form so that he wouldn't be too eye-scorching and flew to Bellwood City to get her to a nearby hospital. As it turned out, the old lady had mobility problems which was why she hadn't had the chance to move out of the way or leave the house in time after hearing the commotion outside.

As he sat in the hospital, waiting for Mr Chan to pick him up after he had been comforted by the nurses and the doctor that the old lady would be okay and taken care of, he seethed to himself.

He hadn't been willing to talk about it as they took the bus back home. All of his anger was so quiet, so frigid, that it was frankly quite terrifying to Mr Chan as he hadn't seen the boy act this way before. The old man left him alone and hadn't asked. They ate dinner quietly and hadn't spoken a word.

Finally winding down for the night, the elderly man watched the news while somebody was talking about what had happened in Bellwood that night involving the deeds of one named Ben Tennyson.

"Would you believe that girl, Julie, used to date that boy?" Mr Chan finally decided to say, as he watched disapprovingly upon seeing even more damage to the streets. "He destroyed my roof that one time, you know, said he was sorry but left it like that anyway. Mr. Yamamoto had to help with fixing it up, what with my premium being so low. Stupid boy."

The pale haired young man who had simply sat rigidly by the windowsill for most of the night slowly turned his head to the news, and without saying anything stood up, picked up the remote and shut off the television. Unceremoniously, he headed over to where his room was supposed to be.

This was how he knew for certain that he was not Ben Tennyson. And he never wanted to be him.

Fate obviously hated him because this was just the beginning and he had no idea what was about to come.


	2. Anger

Despite all of his polite posturing, Evan wasn't a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination. For the most part, he was just a boy. As an example, he still immediately gravitated to cartoons and childishly, gleefully followed it religiously every time it was aired. On the dot, he'd be wrestling the remote out of Mr Chan's hands so he could have the television on Sumo Slammers on the night schedule of the show. The morning one was what screened the original series, and the later part of the day showed its sequel of Hero Generation. Because Mr Chan didn't have a DVR and he had to go assist with cleaning up or arranging the display in the store, he mostly managed to miss the morning show.

Also, while he did well at work for the most part in terms of cleanliness, his own room was an eye sore. Mr Chan was constantly screaming at him after seeing the state of the room, always managing to be unable to enter it because a pile of shirts, pants, food cartons, drink cups, and borrowed comic books from the library were creating a sturdy blockade. Mr Chan was anal retentive, and the rest of the house would always be spotless. It didn't matter that he was slow from age but he could clean it like a professional. Which meant that when Evan didn't have the chance to redirect the old man away from seeing the now practically forest like mess in his room, he would get an earful for the entire night.

From the old pictures in the house, Evan managed to deduce that the man was a decorated military soldier which explained the cleanliness obsession, only seeming really short now due to onset of osteoporosis. The only information he managed to coax out of the man regarding that past was that he had to retire from service due to a leg injury that still bothered him until now. Of the lady in the pictures that was with him, Evan never got anything. The topic of the conversation would always change, and he hadn't wanted to push too much. He could tell even then that this was a particularly sore topic. The only thing that gave him any indication that the lady was somebody very important was the presence of a gold band on the elderly man's ring finger. There without its companion.

Instead Mr Chan had talked about something else, finding a topic that would poke more fun at the young man. "You still talk with that Julie girl or not?" was the quite straightforward, very plainly stated question.

That was when Evan found the opportunity to start choking on his noodles and found his face heating up far more than the food that he was placing in his mouth. "Uh, yeah. Sometimes. When she finishes school and stuff," he answered in what he hoped was a disinterested tone. The attempt failed.

The old man simply snorted at his obviousness, which Evan found himself pouting miserably in response. "She doing well in that school of hers? Heard she was planning to go to the best state college after. You should really be following in her footsteps, working hard and studying."

With a simple wave of his hand in dismissal, he just laughed off the idea. "That's actually the one good thing about being a homeless alien." Mr Chan had long since found out about the fact that he wasn't all human. This happened after he had transformed after trying to catch the old man when he had fallen in his attempt to arrange one of the displays at the highest shelf at the far end of the store. The old man simply stared disapprovingly at the fact that he was made of blazing fire inside a store filled with wooden products but had been very accepting for the most part. It went down so well it felt like it was just another Tuesday. "I don't need to go to crummy old school – Ow!"

The old man had reached forward with a ladle and smacked him – though not too harshly – over the top of his head. "Don't you go around talking about education like it's no important thing, silly boy. You want to go back to being properly homeless again, do you? Don't go depending on others that won't always be there." There was a moment of Evan suddenly feeling his stomach sinking, not particularly fond of the fact that the elderly shopkeeper was talking about the prospect of dying in such an unequivocal fashion. "Them qualifications get you places, even then you have to have your own elbow grease and grit to live out there. People who can afford to pretend life ain't hard haven't struggled, haven't starved and likely won't any time in the near future. You don't have that privilege. Not all people are like that Julie friend of yours. You might have a life where all you'll meet are the other people on the street that day you were begging."

Staring sadly into his bowl and poking at the vegetables that were floating soggily in the soup, he felt embarrassed over what he had said now.

"That's why you'll be earning from here on in. You better learn how to save money! Invest! Don't buy so much of them playing cards or whatever you kids waste your money on because I can't pay you much and I still pay for your food," the old man ranted, shaking his own soup spoon.

For a time, he only had his mouth gaping open in surprise with the hand holding his spoon hovering over his bowl. At least until the old man picked up the ladle to reach out and close his jaw up.

"Rude," Mr Chan mumbled, shaking his head.

Slowly feeling a smile of fondness dawn on his face, the younger man allowed the information to sink in properly. There were a lot of good people in the world, heroes in their own rights, out there making the world a better place little by little without any need for acknowledgement. But they could use something like this anyway: "Thank you." It was interesting to be put in a position where he could encounter people like them.

The old man simply grunted irritably and told him him to finish off his food unless he wanted to hear a rant about starving children in third world countries.

To which the younger man laughed and remarked, "Should I get off your lawn too? – Ow!" After being hit lightly with the ladle, he still kept on chortling anyway. He was far too happy to be deterred by a kitchen implement.

* * *

It was a fortnight later when he received his first wage and was told promptly, with squinted critical eyes, to get himself a bank account. With a corn-dog hanging off his mouth, he walked on the streets and contemplated what to do with the money that he had decided to keep for himself.

It didn't take long before something exploded beside him. The strange thing was that he had been well away from any alien activity or Plumber business ever since that last situation that had left a bitter taste in his mouth. This time, he was half hoping that he would somehow stumble into somebody else involved in the trouble.

A thin body clad in hints of white and blue was flung past him, and it was practically instinctive when he transformed into his alien form. Using his wings to provide as the much softer landing place, he allowed himself to slide backwards into the pavement to cushion the impact better instead of letting the full brunt be taken by the person's body. The sounds of someone running and then shouting out, "Gwen!" in a very distinctive voice was what he heard first.

Unfolding his wings away, he gently allowed the young woman to fall into his arms while she groaned softly in pain. In the meantime, her companion was getting steadily closer into the vicinity. As it turned out he and the young woman's companion were both distracted being concerned for her well-being that they hadn't seen the laser beam of the cannon fired by the Vreedle Brothers.

Raising both her arms, the one named Gwen created a mana shield to prevent all three of them from being immediately decimated by the cannon fire. But the force of the beam was so strong they could see the the energy shield cracking, splintering right into the dome along with them.

"Kevin!" she shouted, as if in unmentioned instruction while she struggled to maintain the shield.

"On it!" the dark-haired young man responded jamming his fingers right into the cement which Evan was surprised to note caved right in at the force and started being absorbed into the teenager's skin. With the now much sturdier, concrete hands, he dug right into the street and pulled up as if it was just a piece of paper that was then used as their temporary replacement barricade as soon as the mana shields went down.

All the time, the Cherub gawked and was rather impressed by how well the two of them were working that it hadn't needed actual discussed instruction. But he hadn't wanted to stay there being completely useless either just admiring the others' prowess. So as soon as the cannon beam needed a time to recharge, the Cherub shot through the air and headed straight for the cannon at top speed.

"Boid, this particular instance is not the time to be utilizing a respite! We're on schedule for blowing them up!" was the last statement that Evan heard before he charged the fires of the Cherub form and grabbed a hold of the muzzle, melted through the metal and folded in the mechanism into itself.

That was when the one referred to as Boid actually did manage to fire the weapon, only after Evan has already closed up the point of ejection. There was an immediate moment of panic as all of them watched the machine's metal parts expand as it built up energy to fire but had no specific direction to fire. Also running purely on nervous instinct, he grabbed both the Vreedle brothers by the scruff of their necks to throw them away from as far as possible to the weapon he assumed was going to explode. Then with that kind of equally crazy logic, he grabbed the increasingly, painfully engorged broken cannon and prepared to fly off with it at the top speed outside of the city premises.

At least, before Gwen called out to him and said through the raucous that he should throw it at Kevin's arms which was formed into a shape of a catapult. He did as he was told. It felt like the whole situation was happening for a lot longer than it actually was, but each member's response was immediate. Kevin used the momentum of the throw and ejected it as far up into the air as possible.

With power that Evan couldn't even begin to comprehend, Gwen made a mana shield big enough to cover the street over their heads as the explosion happened in mid air. Everyone – even some civilians who were previously cowering in fear – watched as the metal parts flew up and fell over, but the shield prevented the parts from doing too much damage.

As the explosion and the after-effects finally died down, the first thing that Evan heard was his rough, adrenaline rushed breathing followed by another voice behind him saying defeatedly, "Sorry, Octagon."

Then the Anodyte fell to her knees in exhaustion and was scooped up in Kevin's arms, who supported her and was quietly asking her if she was feeling alright. The Elohim grabbed the Vreedle Brothers before they managed to crawl away, and dragged them over to where the Plumbers were so he could check up on their well-being.

"Are you two alright?" was what he asked as he ran over to them, unable to truly mask the honest concern in his voice. In the meantime, he kept an iron grip on the struggling Vreedle Brothers with his arms and if that wasn't enough, holding Rhomboid completely imprisoned with one of his wings altogether.

"Holiday from GED ruined but still okay in the end," the gruff dark haired man responded, then squinted at him critically. "Not that it's any of your business-"

"Kevin!" the young woman interjected sharply, while she pushed herself off of the taller boy. Her voice, while harsher with her companion due to how used they were with one another, softened while she spoke with him. "Thank you so much for helping us, by the way. Are you a plumber or a plumber's kid? I haven't seen you around here before."

"Yeah, who the hell are you?" added Kevin, crossing his arms and acting far more suspicious of him than his companion. Then promptly received an elbow square into his rib from Gwen. "Ow!"

"I'm not a plumber's kid or anything like that," Evan responded timidly, shrugging. "I'm just some guy. I was passing by and you guys looked like you were in trouble. My name's Evan Sullivan."

The other young man snorted dismissively, an irritable expression settling on his face at even the mere suggestion. Then snapped, "We didn't need your help, pipsqueak."

"Don't worry, I was only talking about helping her," was the response that the Elohim accidentally found himself spouting out, which caused him to bite his lips together upon realizing how petulant he was being. He wasn't even that close to them, how could he be dropping stuff like that already? The expression on Kevin's face as he looked the Elohim up and down for responding so was actually amusing, and it made Evan smile to himself on the inside.

Gwen, on the other hand, actually laughed at him giving her boyfriend lip.

It took about a second before Evan processed that he thought of Kevin as Gwen's boyfriend. How exactly did he know that?

The subject changed anyway as soon as they heard more people heading over to where they were, and his new friends' attention was redirected. Both of whom changed their expressions to a consistently pissed off look at the newcomer.

"Where have you been? I called you an hour ago! Which you didn't answer, by the way," the red haired young lady snapped at the direction behind the Elohim.

"Yeah, there's fifty missed calls on it," a familiar voice responded, petulantly. "Can't hold your horses much? I'm here!" The voice was enough to bring the same kind of bile that rolled the first time around. The hold he had on the Vreedle Brothers was tightening, much to their complaining. The whining sounds made him finally decide to let them go and drop them on the ground.

"Why don't you go on and clean up after us, hero?" Kevin stated flatly. "Action's already over."

"We were actually at this promotional event for Sumo Slammers at the city center. Perhaps we should have ignored the instructions to turn off the mobile phones while we were at the event, Ben, and we might have heard your cousin's contact attempts," said a voice that Evan was sure was the Revonnahgander plumber partner.

This made the red-haired girl and the dark haired boy glare daggers at what Evan assumed to be where the hero was standing. The fires of the Elohim form was starting to burn much brighter, so he decided that it wasn't particularly healthy for him to stand here any longer. His thoughts were a whirlwind of dark, miserable thoughts centering around the idea: _Even family and close friends, huh? _He'd heard enough. Without further ado, he stretched out all four of his wings and departed.

Rook decided to grab the Vreedle Brothers before they tried to crawl away from where the previous team were currently having their bickering.

"Who was that?" piped Ben curiously, finally noticing the fact that there was somebody else other than the two people who were currently giving him an earful.

"Tch, not you, that's for sure," responded the dark older boy, who still had his arms crossed. A comment which earned him a very childish facial expression that made Kevin want to reach out and strangle the shorter teenager.

"He said his name's Evan Sullivan," Gwen explained, equally curious after seeing the quick departure of their new friend. "I haven't seen him around here before."

"Whoever he is," the savior of the universe commented, staring in confusion at the Omnitrix's blinking yellow lights, "I think he's glitching my watch."


	3. Bargaining

In the bright world of the Elohim, the sun illuminated the landscape and cast a golden glow over the flora. The Seraphim rose in a flurry of wings, welcoming the long day with a chorus, the play of coordinated instruments that seemed produced of natural sounds. A hymn to introduce another day of exchange of wares and knowledge, of community. Very few entered into the private sanctuary of the Seraphim but this particular Cherub had a matter most pressing that required the knowledge of the eldest kin. None were older than the Seraphim.

Farther into the haven of the Seraphim, deep inside the caverns where the light fell a different way that reflected off the surfaces of the stones bathing the walls in cool cerulean, the Cherub was led into the center. There stood a being of a thousand cubits height – wide enough to span the enormous caverns, with hundreds of thousands of eyes all seeing and many faces, many minds, to encompass all the great knowledge it possessed.

Folding in one's wings, the Cherub greeted the being with reverence and respect, preparing to ask. However before anything was spoken, the being declared – all without speech – of its knowledge of why the other Elohim had arrived. The Cherub's ruach had poor connection with the Source, so broken is the nefesh as to have fragmented that link. It was very easy to perceive such a separation.

The Cherub looked up, searching the many eyes in trepidation.

A new life imparted could not be taken away but the spirit would seek for its home regardless of the divide. For now, the fragmentation fostered and an open wound would fester continuously until peace is reached. It might be through the nefesh reconnecting with the owner's vessel or it might be some other way. The great one whispered through the caverns in its unheard tones of the disquiet. As it stood, whatever the fragmentation created was only further break down formed from a very anxious soul. No peace. Only weary. As if the connection spanning through the lightyears of distance still spoke of the carried weight of the universe on the newly formed soul's shoulders. An anxious soul boiling in its own version of sheol.

When the Cherub spoke of the desire to reclaim the part of the nefesh gone missing, the eyes all simultaneously opened. An active attempt would not be discouraged but the likelihood of success – in the current situation was doubtful. Peace, a unity of soul could be achieved by finding an understanding of the self. The Cherub's segmented self has now found a new home, a new vessel, holding a new core to be able to draw an understanding with its predecessor. Bowing in acceptance, the Cherub conceded with a heavy heart.

The music outside continued to play, the tunes echoing through the caverns and increasingly sounding more lamenting than celebratory.

* * *

When Evan met Terrance for the first time, the delivery team were dropping off a new shipment of wares. It was bid on antiques, shopped for in other areas that needed to be hauled back into the shop but would have been difficult for an old man to start lugging around. The young man was only part of a group of people who did the delivery, and it was in the moment when he began assisting the group did he notice the geeky little badge on the older teenager's shirt. It made him smirk to himself. Sumo Slammers. The older series.

"What?" Terrance had asked flatly, holding his end of the cabinet as carefully as possible since the skinnier of the two of them looked like he could be easily crushed by it. It didn't help that Evan had a permanent expression of clueless helplessness most of the time, rivaling even the most confused of kittens in the face of cameras and mirrors.

"I like your badge," the younger man replied, shifting the weight a little better to carry the cabinet much more easily. It only served to dislodge the doors open and making their job even more awkward.

"Yeah, I'm a fan of your clumsiness too," the other young man stated dryly, glaring at the open doors and hoping that parts wouldn't start colliding with the rest of the furnitures.

"No, seriously. I'm not kidding. I really like that series," Evan piped up, holding his end a little better than before. "A big fan of Ishiyama. Wish I could play the new video game but no money."

"Meh, I prefer the old series," the other one remarked, with a shrug that didn't seem possible considering the weight of the cabinet. "The new one isn't as fun as the old one and out of character changes in it's really jarring."

"I think the sequels are okay, it's got solid stories when it's being done right. Characters are still fun. And that one's explained later," Evan remarked excitedly, happy to drop his geekiness to someone willing to listen.

"It's doing that darker and edgier thing but isn't followed up by better science," the other young man pointed out, placing his end of the furniture down.

The younger boy shrugged in agreement. "Fair enough." Stumbling over as he tried to lay his end of the cabinet down, Evan went on an awkward leg position to do so safely much to his companion's unending amusement. "It doesn't bug me as much, I guess."

The older boy just half smiled at his enthusiasm. "Of course, it doesn't."

The conversation would have gone for longer if the old man hadn't come in to remind them of the job that they should be doing and were putting off due to the distraction.

It was an interesting beginning to a constantly argumentative friendship. Every time the delivery people dropped off new things for the shop, he and Terrance tended to band together to share their workload and bounce off ideas and arguments. He noticed the focus of his friend in in-universe logic while he was far more of an outsider looking in, extremely aware of the presence of writers, producers and others affecting what existed in universe. So larger implications mattered more to him, which Terrance found to be an odd stance. Julie referred to the two of them - when Evan managed to bring up his new friend in their conversations - as a Watsonian against a Doylist.

The Elohim had no idea why he began to speak with his friend about anything past geeky television series and movies but it had been a newspaper in the hands of one of the workers that made him blurt out, "What do you think of superheroes?"

The other boy had to pause while they were rearranging the position of a fragile wooden table to stare at Evan in confusion. "I like watching shows with superheroes in it?" the older boy offered, which the pale haired one knew by intonation was a jab at the dumbness of the question.

"No, I mean, like real ones."

Dark brown eyes blinked several times in curiosity at the change of pace, then closed. "You mean Ben Tennyson, right?"

Under his breath, Evan found himself muttering, "- for a given value of hero, anyway."

Simply scrunching his dark eyebrows at the grumbling younger teenager whose words he couldn't quite pick up, Terrance only answered, "I think he's pretty cool. He's got all sorts of powers and he's been helping plenty of people since he was young, according to what I've heard. Can't be easy."

"I've heard things myself," the smaller boy said grimly, taking on a very unusually somber expression for what Terry was used to.

"You know all the horrible things those people say are pretty much hate talk by people too scared of the things they don't know anything about, right?" the dark taller boy interjected, snorting at the direction of the television on the shop across from them. While it wasn't showing the specific news station that Evan was well aware of, he knew exactly what Terry was thinking of. "Some people are really grateful for what he's done, that's serious good right there that people like to ignore so they can feel justified being hateful. There are kids in this place who wouldn't be here if that guy wasn't here, you know what I mean?"

The statement dripped of implication that Evan could easily deduce and it was a pleasant thought to face someone who could provide the counterpoint he needed. Nonetheless a faltering smile settled on the pale haired younger man's face, placing his left hand around an armrest as he stared sightlessly to the street in front of him. "What makes a hero, Ter?"

"- Didn't I tell you not to call me that?"

"But seriously, though," the Elohim responded gravely, looking at his companion with frantically flicking pale green eyes. "What are heroes? Do they follow unsaid rules or are they the few good men who know what's good for us and they shouldn't have to follow messy rules?" Under his left hand, the wood began to creak noisily at the pressure being applied, the age of the material proving to make the situation worse but he was too distracted in his tirade to notice. "While there isn't anyone here who's arguing against the good things that were done, do we just sit here not questioning the things that comes at the price of doing that good? I mean the heroes aren't raising their hand against you and smacking you around, the bad guys do that. But if the hero cares more about going at the bad guy than you, does it mean they're still a hero? I mean obviously the most important thing is to get to the bottom of what's causing you hurt, but is it too much to ask to care for those who are hurt?"

For a time, Terrance simply blinked. Then pointed his hand in the direction of the rocking chair that Evan was holding in a vice-like grip. "The chair's on fire," the taller young man commented in a voice far too calm to be appropriate.

In a comedic flail of his hands away from the chair, the Elohim stumbled away from the furniture to prevent further damage. Mr Chan was faster in his thinking, spraying him fire extinguisher to stop the whole thing from spreading through the store. The chair wasn't completely destroyed by the fire as it simply blackened the area where a fire-enveloped hand touched it, but the value of the antique certainly went down much to the old shopkeeper's dismay. Caked in foam, a dejected tone rose from the mess and said, "Sorry. I'll pay for it."

"I told you two to focus on work," snapped the old man, shaking the fire extinguisher in annoyance.

"Whatever," Terrance answered petulantly, only to receive the old man's very weltering glare.

As the rest of the workers were also reprimanded to stop staring at the mini chaos that the elderly shop owner's understudy had started, the busy atmosphere returned enough for the two friends to find a space to converse.

"Just wanna say I don't know the proper answer to that," the older boy responded contemplatively. "Maybe there's some fiddling with rules you gotta do to get to the right thing, maybe the bigger picture's more important. But heroes are supposed to be better than us. Not just spiteful or small fry. They can't be just another shade of the bad guy wearing a hero's face."

The Elohim smiled sadly to himself, placing both his arms on one of the tables making a motion to intend to place his head on his folded arms. However, he paused awkwardly and stopped himself from completely burying his head. As it stood the counterpoint he expected wasn't much of a help.

"You know, you've gotta tell me about the spontaneous fire maki-" his friend wanted to say, but had been interrupted very sharply by the sound of something really loud at the area of the ceiling. Like shattered, crushed stone produced from a particularly painful sounding collision.

Reacting with pure instinct, he pushed Terrance out of the way of an oncoming part of ceiling that was about to knock him right out. As the dust settled, Evan whipped his head furiously about to check for the safety of the rest of the workers and Mr Chan. Thankfully, they were all mostly alright, with a couple of the burlier men rubbing at sore spots where they've been hit by smaller pieces of the roof. The chair that the Angelfire form only singed was utterly destroyed by the piece of roof that was also about to hit his friend, however. Enough for him to note to himself rather darkly that someone else finished that off for him.

There was a part of him that was growing steadily more jaded, that his pale green eyes met slightly darker green eyes head on from on top. It was a large moth-like creature flapping its wings rather pathetically – _Big Chill_, a voice inside Evan's head had affirmed – watching everyone else inside the building in embarrassment.

"Sorry about this," the alien said sheepishly, dislodging itself from the necrofiggian shaped hole above them.

"Not you again," Mr Chan whined, placing a gnarly hand over his forehead in incredible frustration. It wasn't long before then that the hero managed to finally remove himself from the hole and flapped his wings to head to the direction of the action. The elderly man tried to scream after him: "Wait, come back!" with rickety movements running to the door to follow. Though the alien hero had left the area before the old shopkeeper even reached the door. Sighing in irritation, he asked at the general direction of the street where Ben had previously been, "Who's gonna pay for this damage now?" The tone he used knew that it wasn't supposed to reach that far and was largely rhetorical.

Walking calmly over to the old man, the Elohim stood to his side and answered in a placating manner, "I will."

"You don't earn enough to pay for that roof," the shopkeeper snarked, although the tone was less sharp than what the young man was used to. It seemed that even the authoritative, easily angered old man still couldn't keep the gratefulness out of his snipes.

"I'll help him fix it," Terrance added in, just shrugging as if it was no deal. "My dad's a carpenter, he's taught me a few things."

"I can't pay you!" This was snapped in such a long suffering way, to emphasize the fact that this was still all for naught despite the good intent.

Sharing a quiet stare of thankfulness to his friend, who in turn rolled his eyes at how sappy the Elohim was being, Evan only asserted more confidently, "Seriously, Mr Chan, I promise we'll take care of it."

As the rest of them were finally trying to clean up the mess as well as was possible and the other workers decided to patch up the roof temporarily in case it rained, the two friends continued to discuss.

"It was just an accident, can't blame him," Terrance reacted somewhat belatedly as he corrected the position of the displays.

The one sweeping smiled in a way that, if the older teenager would admit it, actually seemed unnerving in how inappropriate it was on such a brightly optimistic person. "I'm sure that's what he tells himself, too."

* * *

In the darkened caverns in a far away world, deep within the haven of very old creatures, a being felt the knotting, curling feeling of a part of the Source further fragmenting. This one had not seen such an event in millennia, nothing quite so fully realized as this as well. It was poisonous and toxic, a darkness fostered by personal chaos. The Elohim whose nefesh was shorn was not the only one who could become dragged by the quandary. Searching its many minds for the knowledge and the experience to respond to this problem more actively, it closed all its eyes for the first time in centuries.

As it instigated its search, it feared. There was something far too intense in the tenuous connection still maintained by the segmented nefesh, strong enough to travel to the homeworld of the Elohim. The problem seemed to be exacerbated by the presence of the one unknown factor that baffled the great old one, the presence of the most powerful weapon in the universe.

The Omnitrix. The weapon which lay around the wrist of its wielder, occasionally flipping through the active mode to the scan mode. All the while its wearer slept comfortably, not realizing that the transitions were even occurring.


	4. Depression

When he met Herve for the first time, the young Elohim had no idea what to make of him. The fellow seemed nice enough, mostly kind of incomprehensible to have long conversations with – or any, to be perfectly honest. Evan didn't consider himself creative, so interests in photography just somewhat flew over his head. All that talk of DSLR, ISO, resolution, shutter speed and other such jargon just left him there with a mouth gaping open until Julie had come in to close it shut by gently pushing his jaw up with the end of her tennis racquet.

He understood aesthetics enough to eyeball something and determine its attractiveness. Anything deeper, on the other hand, and he drew on a blank. Of course there wasn't anything particularly wrong with the other young man doting on his girlfriend and his preoccupation with taking her pictures. Other people would even go so far as to say that it was kind of cute. To be perfectly honest, Evan understood aesthetics enough to see why Julie would be considered photogenic.

In the young Elohim's mind though, pictures were a poor representation of who she was. The picture wouldn't laugh at his jokes or his general clumsiness, it wouldn't smile at him fondly for looking clueless and lost over any number of things he didn't know how to tackle, it wouldn't listen to him ramble about sci fi shows non-stop with a learned careful patience, and it wouldn't take him in and feed him after going hungry purely out of generosity. A picture didn't show her facets: her coldness and passive aggressiveness when pushed too far, her sweet warmth and kindness, her acceptance of the unusual, her disinterest in fighting. It wasn't Julie. It was just a piece of glossy paper.

It didn't help that he considered himself camera-shy. Or even camera-phobic.

It was a bright morning, blazing sun baking everyone who dared to go out without an umbrella. They were just walking leisurely around the parks at Bellwood, deciding to settle themselves beside a fountain after they'd ordered some drinks around the area. Evan was the one who got the drinks, primarily to just leave the two alone so they could go and hold hands or whatever and that he wouldn't have to stare awkwardly at them in the meantime.

When he was asking about what they wanted, Evan had instinctively pointed at a stall that sold some ice cold smoothies that would just be perfect for the weather. The expression on his friend's face was enough for him to deduce that she wasn't particularly excited about getting those drinks.

It was only reinforced when she's said outright: "I'm not much of a fan of smoothies."

With a big smile, he'd asked rather innocently, "Why not? Don't like the taste?"

Shaking her head softly, she watched Herve preoccupy himself with taking pictures of the idyllic park surroundings. Then replied, "Don't like the memories."

It was the sign for him to let the conversation go, so he did. When he'd come back at the fountain, Evan had gotten everyone frozen sodas which everyone was grateful for.

It was her boyfriend later on that revealed that her birthday was coming soon and had been brainstorming ideas with Evan about what to get her for it. Or at least the Elohim assumed that was it, he'd picked up a few words here and there and simply politely nodded along for all the rest that he didn't quite get. They both immediately shut up when she'd come closer to see what the fuss was all about.

After that Saturday afternoon hanging out with Julie and her boyfriend, Terrance had come over to pick Evan up and get started over the broken roof at Mr. Chan's shop. Apparently the look on his face was so priceless that the older, taller teenager couldn't stop laughing. The Elohim simply grabbed his friend's arm, his face a humiliated beet red and making as many excuses to run away from the couple, and dragged the uncontrollably amused teen.

The pink clad young girl just waved her hand daintily, smiling at him gently, seeming unwitting over the course of events.

"So how's life playing the third wheel?" the taller young man prodded after they were a good distance away, a knowing smirk playing on his lips.

There was an expression of long suffering misery on the smaller teenager's face. "I'm not a third wheel," he responded defensively. "Besides, Julie's just my friend."

The laugh got even more rambunctious, with a pained clutch of excessive joy from the usually flat and droll older boy. "Oh, she definitely has you square in the friend zone alright," Terrance answered in the much more flat tone that he always had once he finally calmed himself down, donning a much more smart-ass expression. "Next time she's gonna ask you to go join her girlfriends on their nail-polishing parties." Blinking repeatedly upon close inspection at his younger friend, Terry backpedaled a bit. "Although that invitation's probably gonna get revoked 'cause you take care of your nails just fine." The chortle was becoming even more uncontrollable than before.

Trying not to look as hurt as he did and shoving his hands in his pockets self-consciously, Evan mumbled mostly to himself, "It's not like I'm trying to be more than a friend anyway." Pouting, he thought defiantly about the fact that Mr Chan made sure that he kept up on hygiene since he had to be presentable to help manage the shop.

Smacking the younger boy's back mock-consolingly, Terrance said, "You keep telling yourself that, bud."

Eventually, after an endless amount of good-natured ribbing, they finally arrived at the shop where Mr Chan was currently entertaining a prospective customer. Somebody who looked from out of town and had the air of a person who used hundred dollar bills as a fan.

The two kids stared at each other, with Terry's eyebrows pushed high enough to go up his hairline – which should have been hard considering how it was mostly shaved - and a knowing purse of his lips. The young Elohim couldn't help but chuckle, audible enough for Mr Chan to glare at the two of them and shoo them off with a hand wave. The taller teenager gestured at the toolbox in his hand and gestured up top to signify that they were finally getting started on the roof. The old man simply nodded his head impatiently and shooed them off for the last time before returning his attention to the sales pitch.

Once they were up the roof, with the help of a ladder that Evan filched off from the back – which he wasn't sure if Mr Chan or their neighbor, Mrs Kurtzberg, owned – they got into another long geeky conversation. This time about the made-for-TV movies of their favorite show, unanimously agreeing on how terrible they were but disagreeing on whether it was "so bad it's good" or just "so bad it's bad". As they were laying out a fix for the broken rafter, Terry looked down at their equipment critically to assess how well the patch up would do.

"You know," the older boy began conversationally. "I heard from somewhere, right, that there's actually this really cool off-world alien adhesive thing that gives more stability to structure fix-ups than the regular old metal supports, screws and nails." The pale-haired one he was speaking with perked up curiously, looking with bright green eyes that were round as saucers in interest. "Heard that one of my dad's co-workers got a hold of it when they worked on Mr Baumann's home. Don't know if you know Mr Baumann but he's also called up the company to do some deliveries for him a few times. But I heard that he does deliveries for some alien-related stuff too, that's why he's in the know apparently. Sounds crazy, huh?"

Picking up a steel support, Terrance tried to look at the wooden rafter if it was matched up in size just as he'd measured. However, as he was about to look for other tools in his dad's box, Evan grabbed a hold of his wrist.

"Do you know where I can talk to this Mr Baumann?" the younger boy asked, smiling like he had some absolutely loopy over-optimistic idea that Terry was about to smack his forehead for.

"I just heard that from somewhere. I don't actually know if it's true, alright?" the older boy droned, sighing and shaking his head at Evan's shenanigans.

Raising both hands to seem comforting but holding a face that was a bit over-excited for Terrance to properly trust – it was too similar to his little brother hyped up on sugar and thinking that jumping off the roof was a terrific idea – the Elohim piped up in a bubbly way, "You gotta trust me on this. It'll be great, Mr Chan's roof is gonna be as good as new. Ter, you gotta tell me where to find Mr Baumann!"

Groaning and muttering over confidentiality and how much he was going to regret this, Terry finally conceded. Shaking his head as the younger man practically stumbled on the ladder as he went down, the taller teenager took the replacement wooden beam and began to shape it more appropriately to fit the broken segment of the rafter. Downstairs, he could hear Evan asking for permission from the old man to get going and was swiftly told to just go already.

Arriving at Mr Baumann's place had nearly got him broomed in the face. There was a moment where his heart skipped beats when the man had apologized for mistaking him for the neighbor who constantly caused destruction of his property. There was no need for detective abilities to know Mr Baumann had just implied he looked like Ben Tennyson at first glance.

Some clearing of throats later and a lot of pleading followed by a momentary transformation to his Angelfire form to prove a point, the Elohim did get Mr Baumann to reveal the location of the underground alien market. There was a smile of sadness on his form as he watched Mr Baumann flinch at his transformation and tell him to change back before he burned his house down. Evan could actually tone down the fires of the form to prevent even heating anything near it but he completely sympathized with the man's weariness and natural fear. It was only appropriate to follow the rules of the place he was visiting, he was still intruding after all. Thanking Mr Baumann for the help, he'd left in a hurry.

While Evan wasn't particularly good at most things, he at least had enough of a sense of direction not to get lost while looking for the market itself. The place was something of a marvel, busy, loud and filled with interesting sights and scents. On one hand certain things sold on the stalls appeared incredibly gross and on the other, made his eyes wide with curiosity and wonder. While the situation was startlingly unusual, the whole thing wasn't necessarily bad.

Just different.

_"And being different is fine."_

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he continued asking the gourmand shopkeeper for more information on where he could start to look for a person named Pakmar. While the gourmand lady sat there chewing on a piece of metal as if it were betel nut gum to contemplate what directions to give, something outside the store scattered loudly. There was panicked chattering and screeching from people outside, scrambling on their feet to avoid whatever was causing the trouble.

Nonplussed, the gourmand lady simply pointed at the direction Evan assumed to be where the action was occurring and was told to simply follow high-pitched complaining. Careful in his transformation to his Angelfire form, he thanked the lady before heading outside the store and flying off.

There was immediate recognition of Vulkanus' droids that were fighting off a one liner dropping Humongousaur, who was smashing them right into different parts of the marketplace. The Revonnahgander was going up against Vulkanus himself, who had a large statuette of something distinctly shiny and green in his hands – Taedenite. With whatever limited knowledge of aesthetics that the Elohim had, he noted the fact that it was a very pristinely carved piece that was large enough to be the size of one Echo Echo. He was getting the feeling that not only was the Taedenite itself expensive, but very likely the workmanship added to the price tag.

Due to the amount of times he's stumbled into Plumber activities – sadly even having a situation in which just hanging out with Julie had him going against rogue aliens – it was far easier for the Cherub to prepare himself to fight. Absolutely disinterested and too laser focused in his anger, Evan moved to protect the civilians and take them away from the action as well as he could.

Occasionally he stumbled into someone who wasn't interested in being removed from their stalls as they wanted to protect their wares from getting smashed to pieces, only arming themselves flimsily with broken parts of the environment like a metal pole. One very strong willed woman in particular showed him that she would be a-okay as she pounded a droid savagely over the head with what he supposed was some sort of cleaning tool, much to his awkward laughter.

Nonetheless, as another stall was heading their way, Evan had to pick up the woman instantly and place her out of harm's way. The shell-shocked expression on her face as she watched the tattered remains of her stall and the happy colorful banner looking more like a rag made Evan apologise profusely before gently trying to coax her to move right along.

With a guided, determined expression, he called out, "Rook!" to call for the other plumber's attention as he rolled over to where the Detrovite was to get a hold of their current antagonist. The Revonnahgander's sharp ears picked up on the sound of his call and had responded quickly when the statuette lurched into his arms.

"No more games," he growled at Vulkanus, in a tone he wasn't entirely used to, as he used the force of the large Elohim claws at the end of his legs to crush the arms of the Detrovite's armor.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding," Vulkanus whined, using both his legs to destabilize the Cherub off of him. "That's the most expensive part."

While Evan found himself stumbling back, he used his wings to maintain the balance and not completely be brought to his back. As the Detrovite was about to kick him down to complete the attack, a long line of wires shot out then pulled his legs together. This caused him to finally drop down on the floor face first and knock himself out. While Vulkanus groaned to unconsciousness, the Cherub watched the line lead back to a very familiar shoulder holster.

"Thank you for the assist," the Plumber stated gratefully, holding the statuette carefully in his arms.

Staring down at the Detrovite then around the marketplace to inspect the damage, there was a sense of numbness and coldness that the Elohim felt. "I was kinda hoping he'd stay up for a little while longer so I could drop a Monty Python joke," was what Evan eventually said, trying to remain as light-hearted as possible despite a growing sense of gnawing.

There was a pause. "Excuse me?"

A part of Evan felt really connected to the other alien in that way, occasionally feeling out of the loop and not getting conversation topics because he was new to all this. There was just a chuckle, with his hand waving dismissively as if to negate what he'd said. "It's not important. It was nice to work with you anyway. Even if I'm not a Plumber." Starting to feel a little less jaded, he watched the people walking around, brushing themselves off in a sort of resilient response to the mess. Just a day in the life of the extremely dangerous existence of being saved by a reckless hero, he supposed.

"It was a pleasure. Gwen had told us that your name is Evan Sullivan, is that right? Although I do not believe we have been properly introduced," Rook responded, somewhat confused by the fact that he was called by the name by someone who was effectively a stranger. A stranger that looked way too familiar. He had seen him before, he was sure. There was only one other of this alien that he had seen around the marketplace, but that one was even taller and more imposing, with eyes that were blue like the hottest stars. This one appeared – the Revonnahgander found himself looking at Ben, who was jumping from rooftop to rooftop over to them as Crashhopper – then back at the Angelfire look-alike. So look-alike that it could actually be the missing alien in Ben's playlist. "Huh."

"I've got a friend who knows you." Evan shrugged, feeling like it was a satisfying enough answer.

In the meantime, as the hero of heroes finally went into a closer perimeter with Rook and the Angelfire alien, his Omnitrix went on the fritz. The change back into human was so unexpected that he screamed all the way down as he fell into someone's fabric roof over their stall, looking sheepish at a very pissed off Kineceleran. Someone who was already not happy that the Kineceleran local foods he sold was already used as projectiles earlier in the fight.

"I'm going to Mr Pakmar's store, if it's up anyway, 'cause he's got something that I need really quickly," the Elohim explained rather hurriedly upon realising that this misadventure of his had derailed him from his actual aim. "Do you happen to know where I can find him?"

"It is just over there, if you see the small green man at the corner that is screaming at our direction? That would be him," Rook answered helpfully, pointing. "This statue is one of his goods in his new store."

"I'll take the statue to him. I'm pretty sure you gotta take this guy-" Evan pointed at Vulkanus napping on the floor "- off to jail or something. I've got work to go to as well."

Finger raised as if he was about to about to ask something, Rook squinted at the Angelfire who appeared to be waiting impatiently but politely and quietly. Thinking it through, he gave the Taedenite statue to the young alien who flew off to Pakmar.

As Ben stumbled off to where Rook was as the other Plumber was pulling Vulkanus to his feet. "Does that alien look familiar to you?" the Revonnahgander asked immediately as soon as the shorter Plumber arrived.

"Whut?"

"It appears to be Angelfire, does he not?" the blue clad taller figure pointed out, much to the savior of the universe's confusion. "You are still missing the alien form, after all."

"Pfft, don't think it works that way, Rook," Ben laughed the idea off, just shaking his hand at the idea. Then quickly getting a hold of Vulkanus. "Come on, baby man, let's go. You're on time out."

Still wavering, the Revonnahgander considered it a little further as the other younger Plumber hauled off their criminal to the van. "Perhaps we would require a manual for that watch."

"Reading's for school, not on the field!"

In the meantime, Pakmar snapped, "Not even apology for the store?" Tiny hands up in the air in frustration, he hissed under his breath even after being presented with the Taedenite statuette - currently being the only thing in his wide selection of off-world goods to be intact. "Stupid, stupid-!"

"I'm sorry about this whole thing, Mr Pakmar, but I was wondering if you've got this thing that my friend talked about. I really need it," he tried to say as gently and as appeasing as he possibly could, feeling his stomach sink upon watching the poor man's whole store in shambles. In a way, Mr Chan had it a little better since he only had a hole in his roof. This guy was left with nothing.

Realizing that the young Angelfire creature was at least going to be purchasing something regardless of the decimation of the place, Pakmar gently tried to soothe himself to listen. As Evan began to explain what he was after, it was easy enough for the storekeeper to pinpoint exactly what he wanted.

"You touch it, you buy it!" the crabby old shopkeeper hissed, glaring at Evan for having his hand hover over it to check what it was like.

Now back in his human form, he searched around his pockets for the cash he had. It was only a little over what the actual product cost, so he gave the amount and was given the adhesive.

All the while as the purchase was being done, Pakmar grumbled about the fact that he had four hundred eighty seven children and a wife he had to feed and this was just another costly venture so he should have stopped himself from calling the Plumbers about the stolen statuette. Holding his purchase to his chest, Evan felt his feet grow heavy at the idea of leaving the place like that while the storeowner got started on sweeping up the place.

"Mr Pakmar?" he called out, only to have an impatient glare be directed at him in response. "I'll be back."

When he had rushed off to the ATM and pulled out his bank card, he grumbled in frustration as he stared at the slot and the screen in upset as he thought back to what Herve had told him during the afternoon. For a while, he didn't put his pin number in, cancelled the transaction and made way for the person who was behind him.

Evan had seen something really nice over at the mall while Terry and he were hanging out last week, a beautiful gym bag in her favorite color. Something that Mr Chan would mockingly say would cost Evan his soul at the staggering price. But it was perfect. She could put all her tennis gear in it. Finally biting his lip, he gave up and fell back in line.

As he withdrew all of the money that he'd earned working for Mr Chan – he should have really put a maximum limit in his withdrawal amount now that he thought about it – he folded all the paper bills as well as he could and shoved them in his pockets. Quickly flying over to see the small green alien uselessly try to dust off the goods lying on the floor and placing them back on righted tables, he transformed so quickly anyone watching would probably have whiplash.

"Here," was all he could say as he felt a knot in his throat, as he gave all of his money off to Pakmar to the shopkeeper's stunned silence.

Before the small alien could actually recollect any ability to talk and snap out of his surprise, the Elohim decided to leave already before he felt any more regret on handing all of his hard-earned cash. Evan wasn't exactly perfect and the fact that he hesitated so much about handing over his savings for the other man's livelihood probably spoke of his still deeper trenched selfishness.

However, as he was finally helping along fixing the roof with Terrance – who glared at him for taking so long – the feelings were redirected to the distraction of working. He was laughing again when Terry made dry jokes at the expense of the old man downstairs, who then threw one of the snacks he was preparing for the teens at them in retaliation.

Nonetheless, as the day to his first friend's birthday drew closer, Evan felt increasingly morose. He was utterly bankrupt and he wasn't getting paid until next fortnight. That was when he found himself smacking his forehead repeatedly at the door to Mrs Kurtzberg's home, too distracted that he'd gotten lost by one house away from where he actually stayed.

Thinking that someone had come to drop by, Mrs Kurtzberg opened the door cheerily for the visitor only to come face first to a very confused young neighbor of hers.

"Oh, hello, dearie! Are you alright? Your forehead's all red," she asked in concern, trying to prevent her big, black mangy cat from escaping past her legs and attacking said visitor.

"Mrs Kurtzberg, hello. I-I think I got lost on the way back," the Elohim teenager greeted shyly, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. "I'm really sorry for disturbing you."

"Not a problem, sweetie," she answered in a happy tone as she picked up her cat, who was a little terror of scratched up, right ear chopped off, one eyed little monster who appeared like he was ready to munch on Evan's throat. "You must have so much on your mind. A busy boy like yourself, hopefully Mr Chan isn't working you too hard. Kids are supposed to run around and have fun at your age." The black cat glared with its one bulging green eye and took a swipe at the visitor.

Self-consciously, the young man chuckled and placed a hand over his much too exposed neck. "Mr Chan's okay. I even have weekends pretty much off so it's not too bad. H-how have you been, Mrs Kurtzberg? Your garden's looking amazing lately."

The cat hissed savagely from Mrs Kurtzberg's embrace, undeterred from its single-minded mission to destroy newcomers even by large arms securing it in place. "It's been lovely, dear, thank you for asking. Bought m'self some gorgeous blue irises recently, really just completes the backyard, doesn't it? I'm so glad you noticed." There was an awkward laugh of geniality, before Evan found himself being accosted inside. "I've got some beautiful soup I'm cooking right now and you look like a hungry young lad. How's about a few minutes of talk and you can be on your way?"

"I'm not really hungry," the Elohim tried to excuse, shortly followed by his stomach outright betraying him at the first whiff of dinner.

Mrs Kurtzberg's pet cat only found itself being more offended by the sound of having to compete with another being for food, restarting its attempts to maim the young man. "Oh shush up, Fluffball, don't be rude to the visitor," the old lady said sweetly to the black cat in her arms, who was now purring and acting affectionate to its owner. Placing Fluffball down in front of its plate, the mangy cat was given plenty of food to fill right to the brim of the container. Before eventually digging into its dinner, the cat hissed sharply in threat at the Elohim who backed enough away to signify his desire for a truce.

In the meantime, the sweet elderly lady had set the plates on the dining room and gestured for the young man to take a seat. Thanking her graciously, Evan acquiesced to the invitation.

"You look sad, sweetie," she brought up as they were well into dinner.

After taking a small sip of the water, he placed down the glass beside his plate quietly. "Really?" he asked, genuinely surprised about the comment. "I- I didn't think I looked like anything."

"What's on your mind, dear?" There was a smile so pleasant and open that he started feeling wistful, his mind having uncomfortable flashbacks to a pale haired lady and a dark-haired man who were very condoning and accepting of unruly and strange behavior – people who wanted to be treated as just friends, not authority.

Shaking his head, he answered pathetically, "It's nothing important. Serious first world problems in action." He chuckled, but then raised his hand to wave it from side to side uncertainly. "Well, sort of. Probably not actually." Placing his hand under his chin, he rectified, "Well, I'm bankrupt so I guess that removes the first worldiness of that. And I don't have any money to buy a friend a gift. She really deserves the best." Poking at his soup, he found himself smiling at nothing in particular.

"Girlfriend?" the old lady asked in a very nosey fashion, suppressing a giggle.

"No, no!" the young man reacted defensively, accidentally flicking a bit of soup messily as he retracted his spoon from the plate. "Just a friend. She's my very first friend, Mrs Kurtzberg, that's why she's so important."

The elderly lady just found his antics amusing, easily just wiping off the bit of mess he made on the dinner table. "Sweetheart, you don't need to give this girl the most expensive thing. If she's as close to you as you say she is, the sincerity in your gift is what's going to be the best thing you can give her."

A small pleasant grateful smile graced his features, and he just nodded silently in agreement.

Later on that night, Mrs Kurtzberg told him to come back to her garden on the day of his friend's birthday. The next few days he made a birthday card, one that had Terry laughing his butt off at the sight of when he stumbled into it much to Evan's blushing embarrassment. On the day, Mrs Kurtzberg handed him three flowers right out of her garden: a jasmine flower, a purple tulip and a blue violet. Blinking cluelessly, the old lady just laughed at his blank expression upon receiving these particular flowers. She mentioned how very rarely boys were interested in floriography.

Either way, he was very grateful and hugged the old lady in thanks.

Finally arriving at her little birthday celebration, he found himself acting mostly like a wallpaper and barely interacting and feeling shy towards her school friends. In the end as everyone grouped off to have fun, Julie did manage to stumble into him trying to hide the fact that he was clutching flowers in one of his hands. Inviting him closer to sit by the window with her, he finally mustered the courage to give his embarrasing self-made card and the flowers from Mrs Kurtzberg's garden.

"Uh, yeah," he stuttered, elongating his words awkwardly. "Sorry I couldn't get you anything else. But I was a little strapped for cash and-"

She started giggling, a teardrop forming in her eye in amusement while she stared at his poor excuse for a drawing on the card.

"I can't draw to save my life, as you can see," he noted sheepishly, blushing even more than should have been humanly possible.

"This is the sweetest thing I've ever gotten," she said, extremely flattered and placing her hand over her chest at how touched she was over the gesture. Fingering the delicate petals of the flowers, she wondered over the particular choices. She had no idea if they meant anything, apparently there was a thing called the language of flowers that meant types and colors implied something. It was probably just random though, considering Evan's own adorably bumbling cluelessness. "Thank you so much."

"Really?" he asked in disbelief, staring pointedly at the fact that her boyfriend actually bought her the gym bag he'd been eyeing at the mall from way back. Before he knew it, he was being given a tight grateful hug.

"Really," she answered resolutely.

Once he was finally going home, he found himself thinking back to the gentle, fond smile on her face as she stared at the flowers.

_"Everyone knows my secret, Julie. If they've been watching the news, everybody hates me." _

_"Not everybody."_

He kicked at a nearby stone.

_"That was totally worth giving up all that power."_

Shutting his eyes tightly, he tried to wash off whatever was in his mind. They felt like dreams. Like things that didn't even really exist, like bubbles that popped whenever he went to try touch them. They weren't worth anything to him. It felt like someone else's story.

When his mind drifted back to the feeling of her arms around him and the bright grateful smile, he held on to it. He was still smiling as she bounced off to hug her boyfriend, and started interacting with the rest of her other school friends. The happiness he felt then as she laughed with her friends, then looked back at him to give him one more smile, was like nothing else. That was **real** to him.

* * *

In the world of the Elohim, darkened by the brief moment of night that this particular planet experienced, there sat a creature whose eyes finally opened. They opened, not due to the knowledge one had finally collected after a long search, but out of the dread as it felt a connection of a ruach in the Source snap violently. Like a wire in such coiling tension that when it finally let go, it was felt throughout the cosmos.

There was no time left.


	5. Detachment

The elder Seraph had reconvened with several Principalities and Powers in the coming nights, much to the curiosity of the surrounding Seraphim. None were heard of the meetings outside of the confines of the caverns and when it was finished, the rest of the Elohim simply flew away. In an unusual turn, these reconvened Elohim remained silent and would not impart their information of the event. The oldest being on the planet promptly sent the troubled Cherub in the company of three Thrones, a Virtue and three Angelos to return to the Milky Way galaxy to pursue the detached nefesh. All were warned of the danger of being captured by image devices and were advised to travel quickly and inconspicuously.

The Cherub spoke little to comrades, too absorbed in the world of one's head. The whispers deep inside, loud and obfuscating one's own thoughts, unbalanced the Cherub's reasoning. The words spoken, clear and understandable though they were, were not of Elohim. It was a language of the world that has stolen a piece of one's nefesh. The words were discoloured by anguish and jumbled notes of brief happiness constantly quashed by overwhelming, suffocating self-hate. Like a figure constantly forced to view a distorted image of one's self in the mirror, pointing a sharp object in the direction of its source of misery – the mirror – without realising that it was its own neck. In the days that had past, Cherub began to hear of another voice, one much more wilfully ignorant and too focused on brief spikes of adrenaline and positive stimulus to be self-aware. The two contrasts were another wedge in the cracking psyche of the Cherub, already feeling a loss of sensation and parts of one's ambitions after the immediate segmentation.

For the most part, one had chosen to seclude oneself in the envelope of all four wings as the Thrones guided the travel.

In the preceding couple of days before the arrival into the destination, the feelings that one experienced was becoming dulled. Constant unmitigated bombardment of thoughts that were darkly self-critical, insecure and pained was the non-stop buzzing of one's passing time. The thoughts cocooned the Cherub, unable to connect with the others and fostering a sense of unbridled isolation. A detachment from everything had been the logical conclusion to the increasing negative noise inside one's heart.

The final segmentation of the ruach to the converging Source created a massive void, a black hole that sucked all things including the light around it. One's centre could not feel others. It could not feel anything. Just emptiness, a vacuum threatening to absorb everything else dry for it had nothing and was nothing.

The Cherub was without hope. It was as though after enough repetition of angered accusations echoing inside one's own mind, there was no other truth outside it. The Cherub simply followed along with one's fellow Elohim the outlined plan, like an automaton. As though one had been trudging neck deep in sand, pushing on because there was nothing else to be done. But it was not out of desire or feeling since one had become a disinterested drone. All the while, the abuse inside the Cherub's mind continued flinging words like weapons as the self-loathing was much, much louder than the oblivious self-serving.

The others considered that due to such an incident, they may dreadfully be witness to the creation of Grigori. And in fact might come face to face with its corresponding Nephilim down on Earth. For those that have fallen to ruin could come from those that had nothing left to feel, and everything became a search for ephemeral sensation. Easy to descend when there was an unending void to try to fill, after all. There were whispers outside the confines of the four wings around the Cherub, which was easy to hear but no capacity to respond to.

The Cherub had no partiality to move in such a direction, or any. Too much disinterest. Even descending in the world that robbed one of a part of the nefesh still left the Cherub with little to no response. One would think that this would be cause for celebration.

A Throne had rolled with their interlocking wheels, speaking of the arrival. Peeling the wings away, the Cherub rose. There was obligation to keep on pushing, even though there was no point.

* * *

The name of the original protagonist was Eiji Sekiguchi, or at least that was the birth name of the young boy that the eventual robot child was based off of. Totetsumonai Shounen, when finally translated into overseas had been referred to as Ultra Boy and was very widely loved, instigating the appreciation of a whole medium and made way for the acknowledgement of the rest of its ilk that followed.

One westernized comic book from the 60s helmed by the Bronze Door company had changed the name of the little boy to Evan Sullivan. This was a pointed direction to localise it, as apparently western audiences could not relate to non-western characters and their difficult to remember names. Since the character was designed as typical mukokuseki, the western audiences could easily transfer themselves in the protagonist. This particular story was produced without the input of the original creator: a plagiarized, poorly drawn, badly written piece created to cash in on the success of the actual work. It was one of the things that Ben had read recently to find out how truly bad this thing was that was based off one of his most favorite works. One of the stories that Ben had read near the day that he would lose the Angelfire form.

Staring at the comic book with increasing unease, Gwen deliberated very carefully about the implications. She wondered if this was purely a coincidence or a clue that Evan himself had dropped. There was something that was sad and broken about the idea: a plea for help, a cry to say that this person believed that they were a poor imitation – badly conceived and was worth nothing but derision. The name could be a roundabout declaration of the truth. At the end Gwen wanted to believe that it was just a coincidence but Rook's conversations regarding his own speculations made her want to investigate it further.

After all, this was not new. She snapped at Ben for being so dismissive and she enumerated several instances: Ghostfreak, when he broke the Omnitrix trying to hack it, the Ultimate aliens.

Then Ben asked, "Even if he is the Angelfire alien and I still don't buy it -" a dark, green eyed glare was directed at him from being so obstinate "- what's wrong with it? He's out, about and does stuff. Good for him." There was a shrug.

Eye-rolling and groaning came from the one girl in the room. The older teen beside her stared at the younger boy in a condescending fashion and said to the girl, "Think you forgot the part you're talking to your dumb cousin."

Before anything could escalate, Gwen raised her arms in between the two insufferable members of her team. "Kevin, not helping." Turning back to the brunette, she asked, completely incredulous at the utterly frustrating obliviousness of her cousin, "Aren't you worried about why you're timing out around him? Why the Omnitrix goes on scan mode whenever he's around?"

There was a whisper of surprise from the Omnitrix wielder to his partner, who further confirmed scan mode to be the 'yellow setting' much to Kevin's head walling and Gwen's flat-lipped response.

"For all you know, the Omnitrix is trying to get him back," she added, pointing at the watch as if it would provide some sort of evidence to help their case.

"Or it's just the Omnitrix being weird again," Ben stated disinterestedly, finding the late return copy of Ultra Boy far more fascinating than their topic of conversation.

"Myself, I am not convinced that this situation is over," the Revonnahgander finally added to the conversation after remaining quiet the entire time. "I intend to gather more information from this Angelfire of interest."

"We're coming with you," the red haired Tennyson agreed. But swiftly pivoting to the savior of the universe who seemed to now smell the potential confrontation and seemed over-enthused by the idea. "You're staying here."

"Wait, what?" was his whined interjection at the idea of getting benched.

"We don't know how the Omnitrix is going to react with that guy on such close range and it'll probably be timed out again anyway, so it's not like you're gonna be doing anything important," she explained, folding her arms in front of her chest to be more authoritative. "Stay here until we know everything's okay."

There was no more wiggle room for an argument as everyone else in the team seemed to have decided quite squarely that this was the most practical decision to take. Moving out, the group took Rook's car to ask some questions around the area, especially prioritising the underground marketplace to gather more information. In the meantime, it took Ben about five minutes to actually pay attention to what the group had agreed all through the time moping about doing nothing.

Then after five minutes struck he transformed into XLR8 and headed in the general direction of the tire markings leading to where the rest of the Plumbers went.

* * *

When Mr Chan had been flatly poking at Evan's eternally amusing crush on his friend – which he had officially given up on trying to deny, no one had actually expected the topic of the conversation's arrival at Mr Chan's house that day. Julie wanted to see the fixed roof that had just recently been completed.

The two young men had decided to celebrate their success with a simple lunch at the backyard, much to the continued annoyance of the old man. The old man just knew for certain they were going to start causing an unnecessary amount of raucous enough to bother neighbors and other surrounding shops nearby. Nonetheless, he had acceded to the children's frivolity since he was still very grateful for the work that was done. With Terrance barely being paid for the effort and Evan none at all.

Unintentionally, the young Elohim had actually forgotten that he'd told her of it as he accompanied her coming home from school on one day.

For a while there was just an awkward silence, Mr Chan feeling incredibly sorry now that particular ball had been dropped. All without Evan himself making the actual decision to do so, which made for an even worse scenario that it would already be. Mr Chan watched the scene unfold so painfully, he actually felt bad for the kid he always had the habit of reprimanding.

"Um, I brought bubble tea for everyone. To celebrate. You know, the roof," she said awkwardly, in a much smaller voice than her usually more confident tone. "I remember you said you liked it."

In sure fire usual Evan level kind of confidence, he chuckled to himself in a choked, frightened way and chirped in an equally small voice, "Uh, t-thanks."

Placing a hand on his shoulder to comfort the young man – which should have been hard since the boy towered over him, the old man muttered that he was going to take care of some of the food preparation back in the kitchen. Which was such an obvious ploy to leave the two of them by themselves in the living room to have their conversation. This prompted much unsaid complaining that was just done by sheer force of expressive, puffed-up, alarmed face feverishly shaking no. Mouthing the words, 'You'll be fine,' at his trainee, the elderly man went to the back with only a mildly irritable acknowledgement at the young woman.

Closing his eyes in an attempt to pretend that this whole thing was just a very bad dream, he bit his lower lip painfully in fear of facing the young woman who was just waiting patiently for him to gather the courage to speak again. Finally opening his eyes, he immediately had the instinct to run and cower in his room as if fearing the retaliation. He didn't know exactly what he expected but he felt even more pathetic seeing the sad smile on her face; the look of abject pity.

The pink clad young woman gave the cardboard cup holder over to the taller young man, who hesitated in taking it if only because he would have to cross their distance. That uncertainty on the pale haired teenager's face increasingly made her feel like she was about to become a jerk. The one impression that she always had of Evan was that anyone would look at him and think of him as a sweet, pleasant, wide-eyed and adorable kid.

It didn't matter that he was fully capable of thrashing anyone daring to fight and endanger the people he cared for, case in point having the Forever Knights mistakenly being lead to Mr Chan's shop that one time about some form of all powerful alien tech. Ship was doing relatively well until someone had used an inhibitor and put her armor on static. When seriously affronted, Evan was mildly terrifying about how calculated he was in his attack. She wasn't even a Plumber and she could sense the training behind the abilities. Nonetheless when he was there just in normal everyday life he seemed harmless and too sweet. Making him unhappy and hurting him was just cruel.

And rejecting him was about as mean-spirited as kicking a puppy.

She had no idea how to go about this. "Is Terry coming soon?" she'd asked conversationally, fiddling with the new off-shoulder jacket she had as if it was suddenly making her uncomfortable.

"A little later in the afternoon, I guess. I suppose he's babysitting his little brother still and waiting for his mom to come home," he answered, trying to clear his throat for every word as if he was trying to push through the conversation.

"I can see you guys did a great job, even from here," Julie complimented, peering through the door that led to the currently closed shop. "It doesn't even look like it's been wrecked."

"I feel like I should thank Mr Pakmar for it actually," Evan said in a light-hearted tone, looking proud of the work they'd finished. "It feels cathartic to get something we planned done. I'm using the word right, right?"

Chuckling fondly, she replied, "I should think so." Scrunching her eyebrows, after letting the previous statement sink in she then questioned, "Mr Pakmar?"

"Little green man that sells some pretty good off-world stuff," he explained, making some hand gestures to approximate the height of the mentioned shopkeeper. "He was kinda pissy when I met him though. Although that could just be, you know-" he trailed off.

Shaking her head to say she wasn't actually sure what he meant, he just raised his hand and shook it to ask her to forget about it. Since he was too disinterested in expressing any more frustration about Ben Tennyson and his nonsense, and he wasn't in the mood to argue over her friend's tenuous stance on morality so he just kept his mouth shut.

That was when the silence descended, reinforcing the elephant in the room that they were constantly trying to avoid. Sipping his own bubble tea, he hoped the reason why they weren't talking about it was because she hadn't heard. Considering his luck though, it probably wasn't going that way.

"Um, Evan?" she began carefully, trying to make her voice as measured and reassuring as possible.

"Yes?" was the wavering, fearful answer.

There was this almost immediate need to coddle him and protect him from what she wanted to actually say, just avoid this stupid conversation altogether and just enjoy their little celebration of the hard work he and his best friend put in. That was the cowardly way though, and she didn't want to give the impression that she was stringing him around.

Which was incredibly weird a mental image in the first place. Other than his very welcoming, soft facial features, this young man was so striking in appearance. Practically modelesque even - except he hated cameras to the point that the idea of getting a picture of him made him accidentally smash his hand into her boyfriend's camera in irrationally extreme response. She'd been asked several times by a few friends in her birthday party about who he was because, as she quoted in her head from one of the girls, 'Where were you hiding someone that hot?' When she actually did try to introduce him to the girls, he just shrunk away and tried even harder to pretend to be wallpaper. It wouldn't be the first time, much to her eye-rolling, that she would be told that someone was way out of her league. On the other hand, here he was, wringing the life out of his sweater at the sheer fear of being rejected by someone. Baffling.

Why in the world did he have a crush on her, of all people? There were prettier girls. Geez, even one of the workers at the opposing shop that sold electronics looked like that one famous movie actress. There were much nicer girls. All sorts of heroic people that he'd met during alien fights might have had him stumble into some of them.

This should be easy. He'd get over her, there were a lot of prospective girls out there once he got over the crippling fear of people. And cameras. Somehow. She was sure.

"About what Mr Chan said..."

There was boisterous uneasy laughter from him and in a far too chipper voice, he tried to minimize the damage with, "You know him, he's just joking around and being silly."

A pause occurred, created simply to let the statement hang in the air for evidence of the absurdity. "Mr Chan. Joking," the young woman reiterated flatly, blinking very slowly.

"It could happen," he said, shrugging. When the disbelieving expression on her face wouldn't shift, he started to stumble into more excuses: "Or-or he's just thinking of some other guy since it's easy enough to find guys who'll, you know, like like you." Frantic hand gestures included. "Because you're nice, you're generous, you're fun to talk to, you're pretty- Ehrm."

Caught between the two emotions of feeling a blush of appreciation for the stumbling compliments and feeling the cringe at the idea that this was going to make the rejection even harder to pull, so she stared at the drinks awkwardly instead of deciding.

"It's just that -" she started, then scrunched her eyebrows at the ceiling, before stumbling herself, "we're friends. And I'm dating someone. And you deserve more-" Then cringed promptly when she processed that she just gave him the same sort of talk that would also annoy her in how it would always presume to know better. "What I'm trying to say is-"

"Julie," he interrupted in a calmer, more somber tone than usual. "I've been hanging out with you and your boyfriend for a while now. By now I should know you don't like me that way." With a much lower tone, as if he was speaking with himself primarily, he uttered, "I just didn't want things to be this awkward, 's all." When he blinked repeatedly and smiled in this resigned way, the sight made her heart clench. "I want you to know that I don't expect anything from you. We're friends and that's awesome."

Nodding in an equally melancholy way, she affirmed with a faltering smile, "Yeah."

"Hey, sorry to interrupt whatever you guys are doing but my bubble tea's melting," another person in the room unexpectedly piped in a flatly delivered sentence. It made the two of the people in the living room jump. Finally turning to the third person in the room, they actually found the fact that it was Terrance to be unsurprising in the end. "What's this private meeting about?" Which was then followed by a knowing, waggled eyebrow look at the smaller, pale haired teenager who just made a protesting face for being teased for the umpteenth time that afternoon.

For the most part, their afternoon was relatively fun and even Mr Chan found himself begrudgingly drinking the bubble tea that Julie had brought over. There was merriment, conversation, eating and drinking. Terry was the only one who hadn't actually found out what had happened earlier and everyone else kept quiet about it, no longer cracking open that particular can of worms.

As the Cherub was elbow deep in washing the dishes, he found himself thinking back over it. Very likely it was just a particular personality quirk of his to fixate on things, specific shows, specific comic book titles, specific drinks. Though it really was sad that he meant every word of not expecting for his affection to be returned and that he was content with the sentiment of friendship. For throughout the time, nothing has changed. That was always how he felt.

* * *

Upon realizing that Ben had actually disregarded everything that she'd mentioned earlier that day and followed them, she prepared herself for a sermon. That was, at least, until they stumbled into winged creatures that were stopping them dead in their tracks as they walked down-town. Unsurprisingly, it was her cousin who first attacked. Even Kevin wasn't stupid enough to make such an immediate assumption that they were hostile and he was usually very much interested in the "punch first ask questions never" doctrine.

Raising her hands to gesture her complete bafflement over his actions, Ben as Diamondhead simply shrugged as if he himself wasn't entirely sure why he did that.

The rest of the diamonds were deflected by a spinning wing defence - which she'd seen before as something that Evan himself used – while the rest lodged painfully into the wings. They watched the Cherub stumble backwards in evident pain.

Without prompting Kevin prepared himself by armoring up and absorbing the concrete. Rook had taken the blaster from the holster. All the while, she tried to apologize for the brash actions of her permanently stupid cousin, holding her hands up in what she hoped was a less aggressive stance. It was easy to take note that the Plumber's badge wasn't translating their language as sounds were produced from them but nothing comprehensible to anyone.

Three others of the creatures with only a pair of wings each actually seemed to possess much tougher feathers, like they were made of something like metal. The ones made of turning wheels and eyes were terrifying and more eye-scorching to look at. Though she didn't have much else to think when the winged beings made the move to attack.

Gwen, with a long suffering sigh, clenched her fists which mana surrounded.

* * *

Since it was already night time, Evan had volunteered to walk Julie home. Not entirely sure whether she was okay with walking alone with him after such a talk earlier in the day, she conceded upon seeing that same brightly optimistic face. He already had enough of the word "no" for the day, and this was exactly the sort of thing he had wanted to avoid at the revelation. Ultimately, it was a much better decision to go on as normal.

The prospect of having embarrassing punctuations in their conversation was debunked quickly by the unending desire for Evan to regurgitate his interest in TV shows and even his curiosity of seeing her in the sports channel. It was easy enough for her to bounce off of his conversation topics due to how engrossed and eternally curious he was of other people's opinions. Well, of the people that he hung out with anyway.

Coincidences. Or maybe fate. That was what happened that day.

The first thing that Julie noticed was Cannonbolt, rolling so hard and being smashed into a wall pieces of vandalised wall falling on his head as he finally lay there stunned. Then it was Kevin armored being hurled into the same direction as his friend, who didn't have time to react and was forced to catch the impact. Much to their equal amounts of groaning pain. Then it was Rook being forced to fall back as two wheeled, fire covered creatures seemed to be easily avoiding the shots he was firing. Gwen was doing somewhat better but not by much as the biggest of the creatures that looked alarmingly like her own friend's alien form was fighting her with repeated blasts of fire from each mouth of the four heads.

Suddenly she thought that having Ship would have been incredibly useful.

The Cherub that was leading the group of Elohim stopped as soon as the young female had been forced to back enough away from this one's attacks. The segmented nefesh. It was here. At first, one had believed it to be still in the position of the image catching device but in so far that the rest of the Angelos were putting an offence against the owner of it, the Cherub could not detect it. But now it was finally here.

Easily finding a stance to prepare herself to fight if she needed to, Julie looked at the four winged creature dead on. But it wasn't interested in her. Turning her head to the side, she marveled at the sight of Evan already having transformed.

They just stood there for a while.

The Cherub was not as excited or as interested about finally stumbling into the missing nefesh, despite everything. It still noted how drastically different to oneself it was, so shaped in another image. Then it spoke with one and asked why the Elohim were attacking the Plumbers.

The Cherub called out for a ceasefire, causing the rest of the Elohim to stop from continuing the fight even as the Plumbers were finally finding a stride despite being outnumbered.

For everybody else not Elohim, the conversation that was happening might as well have been telepathic as no one understood what the bell sounding, tinkling sounds being produced by the creatures meant. Rook and Gwen had immediately halted Kevin and Ben from making any brash decisions while the exchange occurred however.

From the outside, all they saw was a shift in facial expression to the heads and a very rigid body language from their Angelfire friend. And then suddenly a declaration that was not done in the alien language, but a very distinctly muttered, "No."

It was at that point that the young girl beside him suddenly felt dread. Whatever the conversation had been, it had not ended well.

Redirecting his focus from the Cherub, Evan finally stared dead on at the savior of the universe.

_And this_, Julie had thought then, _was not going to end well either._


	6. Acceptance

"For lost soul-" a translation in Evan's head which he knew the English language was a very poor approximation of the actual word, "- borne off of my image, you are quite unlike myself," the Cherub spoke in a measured tone, exuding an intensely regal aura that seemed to come naturally.

As Evan took a look around him, the rest of the Elohim seemed to radiate the same air. He was definitely the odd one out of the lot by being so much less elegant and composed. This was probably the worst time to become the bundle of jitters that he was, making him look like the embarrassing cousin that lived in the attic that nobody talked about.

There were a lot of words in the Elohim tongue that were too loaded with extra information and multiple meanings entrenched in an off-world culture that his head was only making crude translations of. Nonetheless he understood them well since there seemed to be some kind of inherent knowledge or memory in his form. Their conversation was probably not exactly the same in the bright world's tongue but it was sufficient. Especially if he needed to transcribe it to everybody else since the Plumbers could probably use someone who would be able to communicate with their current antagonists. Antagonists that seemed largely disinterested in fighting. Most of them. Not the two winged ones though, they seemed to still be prepared to fight and were just waiting for the go signal.

There was a Virtue in the sidelines, who had not been a part of the battle and seemed much more interested in how Evan and the other Cherub would conduct their conversation instead.

"Sorry?" Evan responded in confusion, not entirely sure what the other meant by the 'image' when referring to him. There were only some memory, not all.

"You are more of another. I can detect this presence, the one with the arm band that captures another's soul-" severely crudely translated.

There was no interest in the green eyed Cherub to look at who the other Elohim was referring to, it was bringing far more negative feelings than he thought possible.

"I hear you; your unhealthy boiling hatred and detachment for the other self. How very odd. One would believe the lost would wish to return," the Cherub stated, rather perplexed but seeming distant about the curiosity at the same time. Even the young human-Cherub could tell something was very wrong in the other Elohim.

"I'm still not following. You're somewhat confusing," Evan answered, feeling unusual in his own use of the words. There was a feeling that he was a child with only a rudimentary knowledge of the vast use of the language.

"To explain: I wish for your return into the original vessel with which you were contained." There was suddenly a feeling of dread, as if unlocking some sort of buried information Evan had no desire to acknowledge. But he continued to listen, he wanted to hear out the Elohim and help them. Evan wanted them to avoid further unnecessary confrontation with the Plumbers. "You are on borrowed time. The act of being captured in one of those devices, these 'cam-eras', this 'Omni-trix', contain us. We are of light. These that permanently burn us into objects take a piece of that light we are made of." While for the most part Evan stared at the other Cherub in what seemed to be confusion, the back of his mind seemed to only be trying to reject comprehension because he wouldn't like the conclusion. "Part of my soul created you but perhaps, due to this Omni-trix, another has shaped you -"

"What?" Evan snapped, perhaps far louder than he thought was polite. Considering how the Elohim tensed up at his response, his instincts were right about that regarding basic conduct and manners. So he lowered his tone apologetically. "S-sorry. I am just unsure what you're trying to imply."

"You are of myself – a very small piece, and you are that other more so," the Cherub gestured to the savior of the universe, who stood a certain distance enough to be clearly pointed to. "And you must return. Or we shall all remain incomplete. A soul cannot be separated from the Source too long as we may perish or lose ourselves."

When Evan found himself taking a look at where the other Cherub pointed, he felt a pull which was then followed by instinctive anger and revulsion.

"No," he finally iterated, speaking in the words more natural to him – English. It was then that a surge of uncomfortable memories surfaced. Hugging Gwen, tear-stained, after he found her again during a major battle against Vilgax. Unexpectedly encountering Grandpa Max in the Null Void, much to his overwhelmed joy. Inviting Kevin to smoothies after he'd transformed back, after a long time. That was when he found himself hyperventilating and he hissed through gritted teeth, "No!"

The rest of the Plumbers seemed confused but quickly put themselves on a defensive stance upon seeing his reaction. The young girl beside him was not necessarily taken aback by Evan's obvious anger at Ben since she'd known for a good chunk of time now. They'd argued about it before. Considering how much she'd reacted poorly to Evan's criticism – which reminded her too much of the newspapers and TV news during the time she was with Ben, they haven't talked about it afterwards. Nonetheless Evan just tended to ignore Ben's existence and actively not allow the other teenager to fall within his peripheral vision.

However, she wasn't privy to how much Evan was always in the shadows, coming to clean up and pick up the pieces for when Ben left a wake of destruction. She wasn't informed of everything. Right now, she also didn't know why these winged creatures were even talking about Ben, why they'd redirected and triggered Evan's ire.

While everybody else was standing on unsure ground, the two Cherubim remained in place. Then the off-world creature finally spoke again, "Have you ever wondered why your memory remains incomplete? The rest of them is there." An arm was raised and pointed at Ben yet again.

"That's not true," Evan lied to himself in a growl, holding fast on the ground as he felt the familiar tug. He tried not to think about how a lot of his memories came without context. Why was he so happy to see them? What had happened in the meantime? Only the closest beings around him took note of the fact that he was inching away from where he stood, not by his own choice.

That was when the Omnitrix changed Ben out of his Cannonbolt form and began to flash yellow, shifting clockwise and counter-clockwise to spin through the playlist. It just made the hero poke at the watch in bafflement.

Finally the Virtue took this as an instance to interfere, dropping down closer to the Cherubim. "We are not here to force a new soul to come back. You may run, if you wish. All living beings wish to survive, for how little amount of time given, a whole soul or not." The Cherub in his team looked up as if this one would like to question such a counter-productive comment to their original goal, but the Virtue gestured that an explanation would come later. "In the end it is your personal choice. We are only here to inform, to learn, and to seek out solutions to problems. But perhaps not tonight." The Virtue's animal paw for a hand was placed on the off-worlder Cherub's shoulder, as if to calm the other. "We should depart for now. The young one will decide."

The Elohim began to fly off towards the sky, the most resistant to go were the Angelos. Eventually all that was left was Evan and the two other winged beings. Until the Virtue took flight as well, giving a final nod of acknowledgement to the younger Elohim to indicate that the old Virtue was confident in the child's ability to make the final decision. The much more imposing Cherub gave a small nod of his own, though more uncertain.

The Plumbers looked on in confusion as the winged beings dispersed.

"Wait, you can't!" the young human-Cherub shouted after the Elohim but the weight on his feet was too much. In the end, he felt no deep negative emotions for the other Elohim. There was something else keeping him from leaving, something more important to settle. "It's not true. No."

"Evan?" a small, pleasant voice piped in from just beside the last Cherub in the scene.

"I refuse to believe that I have anything to do with you," the four winged alien began in a wavering voice. The grip of the claws that the Cherub form had for legs on the ground deepened just a bit more, but no one else could tell that he was ever moving closer to where Ben stood. Completely against his will. He snapped, "You monster!" With the declaration was the strength to hold on to his place. He used his anger, it was all he had. And he had so much.

"What?!" the others chorused, Ben being the loudest and the most affronted. All the while Julie remained silent.

That was when Evan found the confidence to rise from the ground and the inclination to fight. Enough was enough. He no longer wanted to fall under the shadow of this so-called hero. If he had the choice, then he refused to be taken away by this original vessel. For today, he chose to be selfish. He wasn't going to give up his existence for someone like that. If it was only the Cherub he could have done so. But if the whole deal included giving away all of his memories, his very soul, to the person whose destruction that he made it his goal to fix, then it was no deal at all.

Evan furiously sent a fire ball towards the way of the Omnitrix holder, who frantically scrambled off in another direction. The brunette gave the Omnitrix another try but it considered all the selections unavailable.

'Impaired DNA information detected,' the watch blared coldly, 'attempting to rescan incomplete information.'

"You useless piece of-!" the Omnitrix wielder shouted at his left arm in frustration, trying to smash his right palm on to it uselessly.

As another fire attack was further strengthened by a sweep of the four wings, the Anodyte member provided the shield while Ben continued to switch through the aliens and only received the same repeated message.

This wasn't right. The red haired Tennyson was so perplexed and worried about the sudden shift. This was unlike the Angelfire being that sought to help them without even being asked.

_"Oh, hey. Fancy seeing you again," Gwen remarked at the sight of an unconscious Sevenseven wrapped securely around a familiar set of four wings. _

_"I don't believe in the whole 'three's a crowd' saying. Thought I might come in to complete the set," the young Cherub remarked, the humanoid side of the four heads smiling amicably. _

_Just a little to the side of them, the dark-haired Osmosian teen slammed the hammer shaped metal constructs on his fists around Sixsix before shouting, "You're not invited!"_

_Flicking her fingers at her boyfriend's forehead as she got close enough, the quarter Anodyte amended with a smirk, "I say he is."_

It made no sense. What had happened in the ensuing conversation to push this harmless young man to attacking? Beseeching, she called out, "Evan, why are you doing this?"

Hand reaching out falteringly for his gun, the Revonnahgander was stuck on the appropriate course of action.

_"I really don't know why you deal with him," the pale haired young man that the Angelfire transformed back into stated mildly, watching from the far away view of Ben running off to a nearby arcade. In the meantime, he held steadfast at one of Zombozo's arms while the other Plumber held the other. _

_"He is good, even though he is a little unusual and easily distracted. Ben has been doing this in the field for far longer than I have been, after all. His actions and achievements have been very admirable. I do not consider it something I need to 'deal' with. It is an honour," Rook said with honest humility, smiling at the half-human who looked up at him in bafflement. "Have you considered applying for Plumber Academy? You are practically working alongside us. You should formalise it."_

_With a small shake of his head, closed eyes and a fond smile, Evan stated, "Obviously I won't be any good." This caused the Revonnahgander to scrunch up his eyebrows, confounded. The younger man continued with a bright smile at the Plumber, "You're a much better man than I am." _

In the end Rook had used the rope line to grab and pull Ben away from getting set on fire. "You cannot possibly want this," Rook tried to reason with the Angelfire currently laser guided in targetting the young man arguing with his watch. The savior of the universe skidded on the concrete on his back as he was pulled away, much to his complaining.

"I think I can," was the decisive harsh response, preparing for an attack he had only recently seen from the other Cherub. Four consecutive increasingly intensified shots of fire were released from the four heads.

All three of the attacks were relatively shielded by the concrete that Kevin raised, but the heat was too much that it actually managed to crack through the cement. The fourth one he decided to grab at the hero by the collar of his dark shirt and hurl him while he rolled out of the way himself. "I knew we couldn't trust you!"

_A flurry of wings brushed past Kevin, making him sneeze. Serpent fell down flat on the floor with his tongue out as a pair of claws stood on top of him. "I remember you said you don't like smoothies," the young Cherub declared, throwing him a bottle of juice as he secured his restriction of Serpent. _

_With flattened lips and an irritable glare, Kevin asked dryly, "I told you that, when?" As the tail from Serpent began to twitch, it was immediately stomped on from continuing any farther by the Osmosian. Then Kevin's attention was redirected to the juice bottle and at the Angelfire creature that handed it over. There was grumbling of, "I was taking care of this fine, pipsqueak."_

_"You, uh, just told Gwen two minutes ago. J-just a little before. Like not long before now?" the young alien replied meekly, causing the amused giggling fit of the girl mentioned._

_"Whatever!" the older boy snapped, taking a chug at the drink regardless. A raised eyebrow at the stall the drink was taken from, he commented, "I'm not paying for this."_

_A big overenthusiastic grin greeted Kevin as he turned to the person he was speaking with. Evan said simply, "Not a problem. Already did."_

"Please get out of the way, I'm not after anyone else!" the Cherub had cried out, with enough hesitation in his tone for the Plumbers to become convinced to redouble their efforts.

"You want Ben?" the Osmosian stated coldly, reabsorbing the concrete to encase his full body in armour. "Get through us first."

Everyone immediately stood in front of the young hero struggling with the most powerful weapon in the universe, charging up to indicate how ready they were to engage Evan if he continued on his path. Worst of all was when Julie quietly made her way to the others, using herself as the very last barricade to get to Ben. Without Ship, she really wasn't much of a match for a rampaging Cherub intent to use full power just to survive. The young woman wasn't stupid. She knew exactly what she was doing as she stepped up there to stare Evan down along with everybody else.

Simply hovering over the air, the Cherub's body slumped in defeat. "I don't understand any of you. He's not even worth it." Nonetheless, as he felt another force dragging him distinctly in the direction of the saviour of the universe, he found himself in a panic to maintain his flight and propelled his body back with another set of attacks. Heart pumping in nervousness, he was actually thankful that the layers of shield of mana and formed concrete prevented anyone from getting hurt.

The words inside his head were even louder than before, a full force of memories and old conversations that weren't his. That weren't Evan Sullivan's. The worst of them were actually his own, every moment anyone mistook him for someone more famous, for someone who had the entire universe on his shoulders and yet none of its weight. Trembling, he tried to shut out the loudest and most recent one: _"You are of myself and you are that other, more so."_

Due to how distracted he was in the company of his own thoughts, he let go by accident and flung, spun, ever closer. Four wings flapped so hard in the direction of where he was being dragged that the Plumbers that faced him started to stumble away from their well kept barricade.

"I'm not like you," he muttered through gritted teeth. "I don't ever wanna be like you." Tone increasing, his voice more pained and more jaded as he continued to speak. "The people who look up to you and need you, you still fail. Because you don't care, you can't see past what you want. You hurt them as much as criminals do anyway, how can you pretend to be better than them?" Fists clenched, he found more resolve to hold on. It was true anyway. This so-called saviour of the universe was as much a danger to others as those who actively wanted to hurt people. Purely because he wasn't paying any attention. "After all of that, I can't believe in heroes any more. You made that word mean nothing."

Without regard for the point of being protected, the brunette had reached the kind of ire that he crossed past the people trying to shield him while he was on scan mode. Kevin was probably the most irritated at Ben's lack of self-preservation in that moment, while others looked on in confusion. Ben demanded, "What are you even on about?" He hadn't realized he was shaking as the Angelfire was on his tirade. "Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you?"

A mirthless laugh escaped, unbidden. "Really?" the four winged creature asked flatly, coldly. It had been awhile since he had felt this much fury. Like the blood in his veins turning to ice. "Is that how you think this goes?" Another laugh produced, sounding more like a sob than anything else. "You could beat me up a million more times but that hurt wouldn't come close to you ignoring other people's pain." Pristine sterile white walls, long corridors occasionally filled with a bed being rolled out into rooms. "Have you really saved them or are you just making them suffer longer?" The smile of an elderly lady as he took the temporary crutches from the nurse and placed it near her bed. At least until they could fetch her usual crutches from her home. Brushing his pale hair off his eyes pathetically, he asked gently if she wanted help in fixing the hole in her wall.

"What?" Ben snapped, honestly clueless about the accusations. "How could you say that? I've saved so many people so many times. How can I be doing whatever you think I'm doing?"

"Then I guess you really are that stupid," was the simple response. This ignorant line of questioning only served to make Evan more resistant and he spun the wings to create a whirlwind.

The force was enough to knock Ben right into Kevin, who was forced to catch and hold on to him but was unable to stay in place and fell back on to Rook as well. All three dropped on the ground, causing Kevin to insult his best friend's incredible clumsiness. He was promptly ignored. Instead, the brunette simply pushed himself back up and walked straight up to the direction where the half-Cherub was floating. "Why, you-!" he started to say, ready to make this fight into a hand to hand combat if needed.

As if he couldn't really hear the threat, Evan simply proceeded along with his track of thought, "You'd never even looked back. You think those places you destroy have no people?"

"I'm not the one destroying them! Couldn't you see those bad guys I'm fighting?" was Ben's sharp retort, raising his hands in disbelief at how obtuse he found the comment to be.

"You don't think I fight myself?" The Cherub's voice had finally reached a state of cool calmness only reserved for unmitigated rage. "It's not always the bad guys that hit those places. Because you're there and you don't try to avoid having to be in those places, you hurt people too. Just 'cause you don't care." The aggravated resignation on the old man's face made his heart squeeze in pity. This happened fairly regularly enough it was a wonder that businesses around here weren't just a liability instead of a profitable source of income. About a month ago he'd given away all his earnings to Mr Pakmar. That day he gave all that he'd earned so far to Mr Baumann so he could have something to help replace the man's company car. Evan found that it was getting much easier to give all his possessions away. "People live there, people work there. Or do you just love to conveniently forget just in case it makes things too hard for you? This isn't just about having fun with your stupid watch, Ben. There are consequences to playing dumb and not taking things seriously. Your power and authority means more than just mucking around."

For a short while, Ben stared at the floor instead of at him with fists clenched on both his sides. "I know that."

"But you never really change, do you?" the Cherub stated coldly, flapping his wings harder as he could feel gravity of the Omnitrix trying to locate him. "What use is knowing when you don't do anything about it?"

Snapping his head upwards, the brunette glared at the Cherub who no longer had an expression on his face. Ben shouted defensively, "I – I'm not doing it on purpose!"

"Could've fooled me." Then another gust of even stronger wind came from the spinning wings of the Cherub, who was doing everything to push against the now painful dragging force of the Omnitrix.

'Rescanning DNA.' Blinking yellow lights, then a spin clockwise. The Omnitrix continued to detail its course of action, but it couldn't be heard over the people crying out from being tumbled over easily by a powerful wind attack. 'Out of range.'

The Plumbers tried to recollect themselves, dusting themselves off from having fallen. Ben was the worst off at being knocked around since he was at the front.

In the meantime, Julie stood straight and continued to stare down the young Cherub who was currently being unreasonably spiteful. "Evan, stop it," she spoke in equally cool tones. "You're taking this too far. What do you hope to achieve in hurting him?" The tie around her hair was falling loose, considering the tumble everyone has been taking. At the moment she couldn't care less.

A part of Evan wanted to fold in after just a moment of being told off by her, a part that wilted immediately at the thought of her disappointment directed at him, a part that wanted far too much to be perfect so she wouldn't be mad. It was a part that needed to shut the hell up for two seconds. Using his built up resolve, he gathered even more courage to stand his ground regarding this. "I'm going to destroy that watch. It's more trouble than it's worth. He doesn't deserve it anyway." Left hand placed securely around his right forearm, he clawed the end of his right hand and proceeded to focus the energy on to the small area of his palm.

"This is insane!" the red haired Tennyson called out, worried over the longer preparation of the attack directed at her cousin. "Look, you can't cross this line, Evan! This isn't your call to make." She found that she didn't want to raise the mana shields to suggest she was giving him the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, her boyfriend wasn't extending the same courtesy. "I understand that you're frustrated with how dumb my cousin can be sometimes, we all are, but he isn't a bad person. And I know you aren't either." Hands raised placatingly, she pleaded, "So stop this before it's too late."

Upon hearing the insult, the brunette intruded petulantly, "Don't think you're helping, dweeb. Just shut it and I'll take care of it." It earned him a sigh of aggravation and an eye roll from his cousin, who had wanted to respond but hadn't had the opportunity to.

Because Evan spoke first, "Don't. Talk. To her. Like that." It was at that point he'd lost the patience enough to release the energy right in the direction of the hero's left wrist.

"Yeah, seriously. Shut your trap, hero," the dark haired teen added in, cracking his knuckles after raising the concrete barricade currently holding back the fire power from burning off Ben's left side. "Besides, this guy needs some other way of convincing. I think it's called aggressive negotiations." When the wall stopped holding and cracked, he used his own armored up arms to halt the energy beam.

It didn't last long until the attack was winded, which was just in time when the Osmosian started feeling the heat on his skin enough to grunt in pain. The Elohim said coolly, somehow keeping the anguished effort out of his voice, "I'm not interested in fighting you."

"What, too chicken?" the older teenager dissed cockily, flicking a feather that had fallen out of the Cherub's wings in a taunting gesture. "About to run with your tail feathers between your legs?"

"Keh," Evan snorted dismissively, finally unable to keep his flight from the severe pressure of the pull of the Omnitrix and landed heavily in front of the Plumbers. "Funny." Rook had fired deliberately misplaced shots right in front of the Cherub as a warning, though the movement towards them was unintended.

Rushing in the direction of the four winged creature, Kevin disregarded Gwen's shout for him to stop and prepared to smash some reason into the humanoid face. Unfortunately, the being shielded his vision for a short enough time with blinding light and provided the confusion to allow his attack to be sidestepped. With the axe construct at the end of his arm lodged into the ground, his eye twitched when Evan simply grabbed him by the back of his collar and threw him across the street. In concern, Gwen left Ben's side to rush to her boyfriend's side to make sure he was alright.

Misery plainly etched on her features but standing firm with her arms outstretched in front of Ben, Julie tried to plead again, "Evan. Stop it, please." Laughter and accidentally sprayed frozen drinks. A blush of embarrassment. The look of pure admiration and innocent fondness. Blissful green eyes and a dorky smile. "Let's just all go home and forget about this." Badly but earnestly drawn stick figures on a card. Three flowers sitting peacefully in a vase. Her mind wasn't in the right place. It just hurt too much. "Why can't you just let this go?"

"Because I can't!" the Cherub finally shouted, the claws on the end of his legs were numbing at the pain of having to hold on the concrete. Evan found himself falling to the ground, the others looking at him in concern. Ben himself didn't know what to think. "It's either me or him." Then a sweltering glare was directed at the saviour of the universe, again putting him in a defensive and convincing him that the other teen didn't deserve sympathy.

Yellow light flickered again, the projection spinning through the playlist and finding a blank slot.

The Revonnahgander was the first to notice with his sharp eyes, remarking in alarm, "The Omnitrix..." Looking up, he finally noticed that this was the closest Evan has ever been to Ben. In any of the other times that they'd actually interacted. It was as if the young man's instinct told him to create a distance, a good perimeter between the two of them. There was dread in his voice as he mumbled in revelation, "It would appear that our theory might hold some grounds after all." He called out to the couple off the end of the street to capture their attention, "Gwen!"

That was when the young woman also took note of the events, regardless of the distance. Leaf green eyes widened, Gwen said in concern, "There has to be a way around this-"

"I'm making that decision right now," was the response given to her. At first, she was confused by the remark as it sounded like Ben was talking. But it was from the Angelfire being still trying to rise from his crouch to fall back and create more distance. To the female Tennyson's horror, Evan finally started to sound like Ben.

Still not quite processing the implication of what was occurring, the brunette screamed, "No, you idiot! Doing what you're doing's just gonna destroy the universe! Is that what you want?"

There was an expression of uncertainty, as if the Cherub was just throwing his chances into the air when he began to speak, "Decouple Omnitrix command code 00-"

Releasing a dismissive sound, the hero rejoined with, "The command codes were reset ages ago, that's not gonna work." A pause was done before he realized what the other young man had just said. "How do you-?"

"It was worth a try," Evan murmured in resignation, the humanoid head of his form smirking miserably. "It doesn't matter how I know." The force of his foot pushing at the concrete to stand was so great that the pavement cracked, pieces of cement rolling into jagged little stones at his side. "What matters is I wanna forget. I live now. I want to protect what's here now. I can't..." Images flashed of an old lady with a beautiful garden, a slightly older teenaged boy with a familiar button on his shirt, an old man with his cane in front of a shop counter. Pink and a fragrant powdery smell, a tennis racquet, and a welcoming smile. "I'll get that thing first before it gets me." Nonetheless, in a final act of self-preservation he raised his arms to prepare for another strike. The last image in his mind morphed into the furiously cool face that he was currently staring down - all dust and tiny bleeding cuts on a usually smooth face, he found he couldn't quite swallow the lump in his throat.

Her voice could compete well with how arctic cold his had been in this whole situation as she demanded, "How could you?" Bottom lip trembling, she never moved from her position. Arms raised, blocking Evan from Ben and the watch he wanted to target. "Why would you even do something like this when you just called Ben out on being selfish? On not seeing anything past himself? What makes you any different?" Hair falling down around her, it was as if she could see right through the curtain of dark locks that occasionally flew in front of her as she never stopped staring Evan head on.

"It's not the same!" Evan cried out, justificatory. A clawed hand shot out as if to send another attack. She remained steadfast and covered the saviour of the universe, potentially at the expense of her own life. In the end, he could very well just push her out of the way and still manage to get to Ben. Due to Rook's hesitation, it would be easy to just knock the gun out of his hands if he made a move anyway. He really could. It would be so easy. Limb falling to his side defeatedly, he found himself stumbling ever closer into their perimeter. It came out in a murmur, "I really couldn't do this after all."

'Commencing rescan of DNA. Amending data.' Following the recorded voice was an even stronger pull, enough that the young Cherub was knocked down to the ground again and was forced out of his alien form. There was an evident cry of pain this time that couldn't be ignored. So much so that Rook replaced the gun back in the holster and made a move to approach, Gwen had wanted to come closer and Julie's hands fell down to her sides.

Facing the ground, the pale haired young man chuckled to himself, "At the end of it all you still have everything, don't you?" Clutching at his centre, he looked at the brunette who was also holding his Omnitrix close. Then his gaze fell on Kevin, Gwen, Rook, then Julie. And he smiled. "Even after you've hurt them and disappointed them, they still love you. Friends and family that you barely acknowledge." There was a meek chuckle, short and almost too soft to hear. "You're so lucky." Another tug so strong that he'd fallen to his front, scraping his right cheek as he slammed down on the ground. Evan yelped in pain as he fell another time and skidded through the concrete, the red haired woman in the team making the same sound in sympathy.

The pink clad young lady had no idea whether to approach the struggling half-Cherub on the floor or stay in front of Ben. All the while the hero was pushing at things on the watch to find out what was going on, to no avail.

'Rescanning.'

The red-haired young woman rose up a little, asking to no one in particular as she cycled through their options, "How do we stop this? Can Azmuth maybe – ? Will we even get to him in time?"

"Hey, moron! Turn off the watch!" Kevin finally barked, rising from Gwen's arms as he watched Rook try to hold on to pull Evan away. Only for the Revonnahgander's fingers to just clutch feathers, which trickled and floated off like dust.

"You wanna tell me how?" snapped the hero, raising his arms frantically. Only to feel the pull of the Omnitrix as well, bumping right into Julie's back. The dust that had come from pieces that had been removed from the Cherub's person began to trail back into the projected light of the watch detailing out computer codes. "No way."

When he finally managed to push himself to at least raise his head, his vision was blurry. Wetness trickled down his cheek but he barely realised its presence, as he looked up to plead, "I..." A hitched breath. "I don't wanna go." Biting his lip in the strain, he asked in a voice that was almost inaudible, "Julie, please help."

Trembling at the sight, she felt her chest constrict. The hair on his head had become too dark, his eyes not a pale enough green, the baby blue colour of his jacket was slowly being changed, the texture of the cloth shifted, depressingly familiar white racing stripes appeared in specific areas. Something broke. This wasn't right.

Practically falling over her feet, Julie rushed to her friend and wrapped her arms securely around him. It was probably mostly for herself, to confirm that he was still there. "Don't worry," she answered in a trembling voice, unable to stop herself from finally bursting into tears. She wanted to be comforting, to be a steady point, so that he could be strong enough to fight this somehow. Useless. She'd crumbled faster than he did. "I'm right here. It's okay. Everything's gonna be fine. Just hold on. Don't let go." Words practically slurring at the sobs that escaped her throat, she still pushed on. "Don't leave, okay?"

A reflective glass on an abandoned building close by allowed Evan to see his face. For some reason, he wasn't surprised. Nor was he angry. Not anymore. Just extremely exhausted. Realizing that the pain would probably go away if he only stopped struggling. In the end, he found no value in staying behind. It would make him happy if he could help the Cherub whose soul was taken in the process. He just wished he could say goodbye to everybody. But she was here. The powdery smell and pleasant sight of pink. Smiling meekly, he thought that this was always a resolution that was a long time coming.

Nodding weakly at Gwen and Kevin, then at Rook, he smiled at them quietly.

Soft dark hair against his cheek, he tried to focus on the cherry-shaped pink hair tie that had fallen behind her so he could hold on for longer. Then mumbled, "Thank you. Thank you so much for everything." Her sobs were louder than his voice.

Panic truly set in as she watched collar of the green jacket start to disintegrate. Feathers. So many feathers. Clutching him tightly, she rejected the idea that she couldn't feel his arms on her back anymore.

"And I'm sorry," he added in an even quieter voice. In the wrong voice. "I don't mean to keep breaking my word."

_"I thought you'd stood me up."_

_"Julie, I'd never do that to you."_

"I guess I'm no good after all," the breeze said, as a sharp final tug occurred. Words that she barely heard amidst the sound of her own screaming and of fluttering feathers, as she clutched at nothing.

'Transformation 100 returned to playlist. Transformation 100 locked,' the Omnitrix informed coldly. As it was spun to locate the particular transformation, the image appeared blackened - expunged - and it simply said, 'Master control access required.'

Staring at nothing, Evan's first friend just sat on the ground. The last hair tie fell to the floor.

* * *

The ruach reconnected to the Source. Surprise was the first emotion that the Cherub experienced once feeling had returned. The words of gratefulness in the Elohim tongue hung in the air, swept by the wind to nowhere in particular. There could be no places to send well wishes to. It was the most final of farewells: no nefesh, no ruach. Let alone neshama. As if to have never been.

Unceremoniously, the Elohim departed Earth and returned home to deliver their knowledge.

* * *

On the corner of a window of a warm comfortable home sat a delicate vase wistfully facing the stars outside. Of the three stems that were contained in the vase only the Jasmine flower remained. Desperately clinging to life were a couple of white petals. Silence and the pleasant mild yellow light from the adjacent room were its only company.

As the sky further darkened and snuffed out the twinkling stars in view, the last petals finally fell down. On a brightly coloured homemade card with the words 'friends forever' sat the white petals. They lay on either side like little feathers.


End file.
